man, in which he asked her to elope with him. She
had by no means resolved that she would not do this thing. She had
been false to her husband; and as her husband spoke of his confidence
in her, her own spirit rebelled against the deceit which she herself
was practising.

"I know that I have never made you happy," she said. "I know that I
never can make you happy."

He looked at her, struck by her altered tone, and saw that her whole
manner and demeanour were changed. "I do not understand what you
mean," he said. "I have never complained. You have not made me
unhappy." He was one of those men to whom this was enough. If his
wife caused him no uneasiness, what more was he to expect from her?
No doubt she might have done much more for him. She might have given
him an heir. But he was a just man, and knew that the blank he had
drawn was his misfortune, and not her fault.

But now her heart was loosed and she spoke out, at first slowly,
but after a while with all the quietness of strong passion. "No,
Plantagenet; I shall never make you happy. You have never loved me,
nor I you. We have never loved each other for a single moment. I have
been wrong to talk to you about spies; I was wrong to go to Lady
Monk's; I have been wrong in everything that I have done; but never
so wrong as when I let them persuade me to be your wife!"

"Glencora!"

"Let me speak now, Plantagenet, It is better that I should tell you
everything; and I will. I will tell you everything;--everything! I do
love Burgo Fitzgerald. I do! I do! I do! How can I help loving him?
Have I not loved him from the first,--before I had seen you? Did you
not know that it was so? I do love Burgo Fitzgerald, and when I went
to Lady Monk's last night, I had almost made up my mind that I must
tell him so, and that I must go away with him and hide myself. But
when he came to speak to me--"

"He has asked you to go with him, then?" said the husband, in whose
bosom the poison was beginning to take effect, thereby showing that
he was neither above nor below humanity.

Glencora was immediately reminded that though she might, if she
pleased, tell her own secrets, she ought not, in accordance with her
ideas of honour, tell those of her lover. "What need is there of
asking, do you think, when people have loved each other as we have
done?"

"You wanted to go with him, then?"

"Would it not have been the best for you? Plantagenet, I do not love
you;--not as women love the