is beggar maid, unless she were to him,
after he had married her, as royal a queen as though he had taken her
from the oldest stock of reigning families then extant. Trevelyan
knew all this himself,--had said so to himself a score of times,
though not probably in spoken words or formed sentences. But, that
all was equal between himself and the wife of his bosom, had been
a thing ascertained by him as a certainty. There was no debt of
gratitude from her to him which he did not acknowledge to exist also
as from him to her. But yet, in his anger, he could not keep himself
from thinking of the gifts he had showered upon her. And he had been,
was, would ever be, if she would only allow it, so true to her! He
had selected no other friend to take her place in his councils! There
was no "dear Mary," or "dear Augusta," with whom he had secrets to
be kept from his wife. When there arose with him any question of
interest,--question of interest such as was this of the return of Sir
Marmaduke to her,--he would show it in all its bearings to his wife.
He had his secrets too, but his secrets had all been made secrets for
her also. There was not a woman in the world in whose company he took
special delight in her absence.

And if there had been, how much less would have been her ground of
complaint? Let a man have any such friendships,--what friendships he
may,--he does not disgrace his wife. He felt himself to be so true of
heart that he desired no such friendships; but for a man indulging in
such friendships there might be excuse. Even though a man be false,
a woman is not shamed and brought unto the dust before all the world.
But the slightest rumour on a woman's name is a load of infamy on
her husband's shoulders. It was not enough for Caesar that his wife
should be true; it was necessary to Caesar that she should not even be
suspected. Trevelyan told himself that he suspected his wife of no
sin. God forbid that it should ever come to that, both for his sake
and for hers; and, above all, for the sake of that boy who was so
dear to them both! But there would be the vile whispers, and dirty
slanders would be dropped from envious tongues into envious ears, and
minds prone to evil would think evil of him and of his. Had not Lady
Milborough already cautioned him? Oh, that he should have lived to
have been cautioned about his wife;--that he should be told that eyes
outside had looked into the sacred shrine of his heart and seen that
thi