is
nonsense."

"But about--you know what I mean, George?"

"He means to insist on your return. That, at least, is what he
threatens."

"He shall insist in vain. No law that man ever made shall force me to
live with him again."

Whether or no the husband was in earnest, it might clearly be judged,
from the wife's face and tone, that she was so. On the next morning,
George went up to London, and the two women were left alone in their
dull house at Hadley.

CHAPTER XVI.

EATON SQUARE.

Sir Henry Harcourt had walked forth first from that room in which
the will had been read, and he had walked forth with a threat in
his mouth. But he knew when making it that that threat was an empty
bravado. The will was as valid as care and law could make it, and the
ex-solicitor-general knew very well that it was valid.

He knew, moreover, that the assistance of no ordinary policeman would
suffice to enable him to obtain possession of his wife's person;
and he knew also that if he had such possession, it would avail him
nothing. He could not pay his debts with her, nor could he make his
home happy with her, nor could he compel her to be in any way of
service to him. It had all been bravado. But when men are driven into
corners--when they are hemmed in on all sides, so that they have no
escape, to what else than bravado can they have recourse? With Sir
Henry the game was up; and no one knew this better than himself.

He was walking up and down the platform, with his hat over his brows,
and his hands in his trousers-pockets, when Mr. Stickatit came up.
"We shall have a little rain this afternoon," said Mr. Stickatit,
anxious to show that he had dropped the shop, and that having done
so, he was ready for any of the world's ordinary converse.

Sir Henry scowled at him from under the penthouse lid of his hat, and
passed on in his walk, without answering a word. The thing had gone
too far with him for affectation. He did not care to make sacrifice
now to any of the world's graces. His inner mind was hostile to that
attorney of Bucklersbury, and he could dare to show that it was so.
After that, Mr. Stickatit made no further remark to him.

Yes; he could afford now to be forgetful of the world's graces, for
the world's heaviest cares were pressing very heavily on him. When a
man finds himself compelled to wade through miles of mud, in which
he sinks at every step up to his knees, he becomes forgetful of the
blacking on his