You don't
suppose that I should think that sort of life very blessed. But
why have I been brought to such a pass as this? And, as for female
purity! Ah! What was their idea of purity when they forced me, like
ogres, to marry a man for whom they knew I never cared? Had I gone
with him,--had I now eloped with that man who ought to have been my
husband,--whom would a just God have punished worst,--me, or those
two old women and my uncle, who tortured me into this marriage?"

"Come, Cora,--be silent."

"I won't be silent! You have had the making of your own lot. You have
done what you liked, and no one has interfered with you. You have
suffered, too; but you, at any rate, can respect yourself."

"And so can you, Cora,--thoroughly, now."

"How;--when he kissed me, and I could hardly restrain myself from
giving him back his kiss tenfold, could I respect myself? But it is
all sin. I sin towards my husband, feigning that I love him; and
I sin in loving that other man, who should have been my husband.
There;--I hear Mr Palliser at the door. Come away with me; or rather,
stay, for he will come up here, and you can keep him in talk while I
try to recover myself."

Mr Palliser did at once as his wife had said, and came up-stairs
to the little front room, as soon as he had deposited his hat in
the hall. Alice was, in fact, in doubt what she should do, as to
mentioning, or omitting to mention, Mr Fitzgerald's name. In an
ordinary way, it would be natural that she should name any visitor
who had called, and she specially disliked the idea of remaining
silent because that visitor had come as the lover of her host's wife.
But, on the other hand, she owed much to Lady Glencora; and there
was no imperative reason, as things had gone, why she should make
mischief. There was no further danger to be apprehended. But Mr
Palliser at once put an end to her doubts. "You have had a visitor
here?" said he.

"Yes," said Alice.

"I saw him as I went out," said Mr Palliser. "Indeed, I met him at
the hall door. He, of course, was wrong to come here;--so wrong,
that he deserves punishment, if there were any punishment for such
offences."

"He has been punished, I think," said Alice.

"But as for Glencora," continued Mr Palliser, without any apparent
notice of what Alice had said, "I thought it better that she should
see him or not, as she should herself decide."

"She had no choice in the matter. As it turned out, he was shown up
here a