o he had done for her. For her sake he had quarrelled with
Roger Carbury. For her sake,--in order that he might be effectually
free from Mrs Hurtle,--he had determined to endure the spring of the
wild cat. For her sake,--so he told himself,--he had been content to
abide by that odious railway company, in order that he might if possible
preserve an income on which to support her. And now she told him that
they must part,--and that only because he had not been cruelly
indifferent to the unfortunate woman who had followed him from
America. There was no logic in it, no reason,--and, as he thought, very
little heart. 'I don't want you to throw Mrs Hurtle over,' she had
said. Why should Mrs Hurtle be anything to her? Surely she might have
left Mrs Hurtle to fight her own battles. But they were all against
him. Roger Carbury, Lady Carbury, and Sir Felix; and the end of it
would be that she would be forced into marriage with a man almost old
enough to be her father! She could not ever really have loved him.
That was the truth. She must be incapable of such love as was his own
for her. True love always forgives. And here there was really so very
little to forgive! Such were his thoughts as he went to bed that
night. But he probably omitted to ask himself whether he would have
forgiven her very readily had he found that she had been living
'nearly three weeks ago' in close intercourse with another lover of
whom he had hitherto never even heard the name. But then,--as all the
world knows,--there is a wide difference between young men and young
women!

Hetta, as soon as she had dismissed her lover, went up at once to her
own room. Thither she was soon followed by her mother, whose anxious
ear had heard the closing of the front door. 'Well; what has he said?'
asked Lady Carbury. Hetta was in tears,--or very nigh to tears,--
struggling to repress them, and struggling almost successfully. 'You
have found that what we told you about that woman was all true.'

'Enough of it was true,' said Hetta, who, angry as she was with her
lover, was not on that account less angry with her mother for
disturbing her bliss.

'What do you mean by that, Hetta? Had you not better speak to me
openly?'

'I say, mamma, that enough was true. I do not know how to speak more
openly. I need not go into all the miserable story of the woman. He is
like other men, I suppose. He has entangled himself with some
abominable creature and then when he is tired of h