after the Duke's departure
he thought more of his wife and of Burgo Fitzgerald than he did of
Lord Brock and Mr Finespun. But of this he was aware,--that he had
forgiven his wife; that he had put his arm round her and embraced her
after hearing her confession,--and that she, mutely, with her eyes,
had promised him that she would do her best for him. Then something
of an idea of love came across his heart, and he acknowledged to
himself that he had married without loving or without requiring love.
Much of all this had been his own fault. Indeed, had not the whole
of it come from his own wrong-doing? He acknowledged that it was so.
But now,--now he loved her. He felt that he could not bear to part
with her, even if there were no question of public scandal, or of
disgrace. He had been torn inwardly by that assertion that she loved
another man. She had got at his heart-strings at last. There are men
who may love their wives, though they never can have been in love
before their marriage.

When the Duke had been gone about an hour, and when, under ordinary
circumstances, it would have been his time to go down to the House,
he took his hat and walked into the Park. He made his way across Hyde
Park, and into Kensington Gardens, and there he remained for an hour,
walking up and down beneath the elms. The quidnuncs of the town, who
chanced to see him, and who had heard something of the political
movements of the day, thought, no doubt, that he was meditating his
future ministerial career. But he had not been there long before he
had resolved that no ministerial career was at present open to him.
"It has been my own fault," he said, as he returned to his house,
"and with God's help I will mend it, if it be possible."

But he was a slow man, and he did not go off instantly to the Duke.
He had given himself to eight o'clock, and he took the full time.
He could not go down to the House of Commons because men would make
inquiries of him which he would find it difficult to answer. So he
dined at home, alone. He had told his wife that he would see her at
nine, and before that hour he would not go to her. He sat alone till
it was time for him to get into his brougham, and thought it all
over. That seat in the Cabinet and Chancellorship of the Exchequer,
which he had so infinitely desired, were already done with. There was
no doubt about that. It might have been better for him not to have
married; but now that he was married, and that