ou have had me say?"

"I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that
house."

"Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I
loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could
have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings,
and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he
had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for
myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been
possible for me to give him. But there would have been something
left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care
for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to
do?"

Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be
true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or
false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her.
And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as
much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened
visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they
walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied
with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's
Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!"

"Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now,
only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble."

"We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?"
said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must
not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas,
Mrs Marsham and Mr Bott."

These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they
were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from
the ears of Mr Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not
have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to
any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing
of Mr Palliser's cousin.

They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had
been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to
speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to
her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual
light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to
depress her spirits.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Alice Leaves the Priory

As