London; and
when she reached home, rushed up to the nursery and instantly burst into
tears upon the sleeping little Adolphus's pink and lace cradle.

"It's all about that necklace, Mrs. Prince," the good-natured Baronet
explained to the nurse of the son and heir. "I know it's about the
necklace. She rowed me about it all the way down to Epsom; and I can't
give it her now, that's flat. I've _no_ money. I _won't_ go tick, that's
flat; and she ought to be contented with what she has had; oughtn't she,
Prince?"

"Indeed she ought, Sir Joseph; and you're an angel of a man, Sir Joseph;
and so I often tell my lady, Sir Joseph," the nurse said: "and the more
you will spile her, the more she will take on, Sir Joseph."

But if Lady Raikes was angry at not having the necklace, what must have
been her ladyship's feelings when she saw in the box opposite to her at
the Opera, Mrs. Somerset Montmorency, with that very necklace on her
shoulders for which she had pined in vain! How she got it? Who gave it
her? How she came by the money to buy such a trinket? How she dared to
drive about at all in the Park, the audacious wretch! All these were
questions which the infuriate Zuleika put to herself, her confidential
maid, her child's nurse, and two or three of her particular friends; and
of course she determined that there was but one clue to the mystery of
the necklace, which was that her husband had purchased it with the six
hundred pounds which he had won at the Derby, which he denied having won
even to her, which he had spent in this shameful manner. Nothing would
suit her but a return home to her papa--nothing would satisfy her but a
separation from the criminal who had betrayed her. She wept floods of
tears over her neglected boy, and repeatedly asked that as yet
speechless innocent, whether he would remember his mother when her place
was filled by another, and whether her little Adolphus would take care
that no insult was offered to her untimely grave?

The row at home at length grew so unbearable, that Sir Joseph Raikes,
who had never had an explanation since his marriage, and had given into
all his wife's caprices--that Sir Joseph, we say, even with his 'eavenly
temper, he broke out into a passion; and one day after dinner, at which
only his brother-in-law Dolly was present, told his wife that her
tyranny was intolerable, and that it must come to an end.

Dolly said he was "quite wight," and backed up Raikes in every way.

Z