landlady called me Mrs. Woodville in your mother's hearing, and twice
over, I declare to you on my word of honor, it failed to produce the
slightest impression on her. She looked and acted as if she had never
heard her own name before in her life."

"'Acted' is the right word," he said, just as composedly as before.
"The women on the stage are not the only women who can act. My mother's
object was to make herself thoroughly acquainted with you, and to throw
you off your guard by speaking in the character of a stranger. It is
exactly like her to take that roundabout way of satisfying her curiosity
about a daughter-in-law she disapproves of. If I had not joined you when
I did, you would have been examined and cross-examined about yourself
and about me, and you would innocently have answered under the
impression that you were speaking to a chance acquaintance. There is my
mother all over! She is your enemy, remember--not your friend. She is
not in search of your merits, but of your faults. And you wonder why
no impression was produced on her when she heard you addressed by your
name! Poor innocent! I can tell you this--you only discovered my
mother in her own character when I put an end to the mystification by
presenting you to each other. You saw how angry she was, and now you
know why."

I let him go on without saying a word. I listened--oh! with such a heavy
heart, with such a crushing sense of disenchantment and despair! The
idol of my worship, the companion, guide, protector of my life--had he
fallen so low? could he stoop to such shameless prevarication as this?

Was there one word of truth in all that he had said to me? Yes! If I
had not discovered his mother's portrait, it was certainly true that I
should not have known, not even have vaguely suspected, who she really
was. Apart from this, the rest was lying, clumsy lying, which said one
thing at least for him, that he was not accustomed to falsehood and
deceit. Good Heavens! if my husband was to be believed, his mother must
have tracked us to London, tracked us to the church, tracked us to the
railway station, tracked us to Ramsgate! To assert that she knew me by
sight as the wife of Eustace, and that she had waited on the sands and
dropped her letter for the express purpose of making acquaintance with
me, was also to assert every one of these monstrous probabilities to be
facts that had actually happened!

I could say no more. I walked by his side in silence,