eyelids looking at the fire, deep in painful thought. Two perpendicular
wrinkles upon her broad white forehead--so calm, so unclouded in
society--told of gnawing cares. Then she stole a look at her husband,
as he reclined in his arm-chair, his head lying back against the
cushions in listless repose, his eyes looking vacantly at the window,
whence he could see only the rain-blurred fronts of opposite houses,
blank, dull windows, grey slated roofs, against a leaden sky.

He had been a handsome man, and he was handsome still, albeit premature
decay, the result of an evil life, was distinctly marked in his faded
face. The dull, yellow tint of the complexion, the tarnished dimness of
the large blue eyes, the discontented droop of the lips, the languor of
the attitude, the pallid transparency of the wasted hands, all told of a
life worn threadbare, energies exhausted, chances thrown away, a mind
abandoned to despair.

'You look very ill,' said his wife, after that long blank interval,
which marked so unnatural an apathy between husband and wife meeting
after so long a severance.

'I am very ill. I have been worried to death--surrounded by rogues and
liars--the victim of a most infernal conspiracy.' He spoke hurriedly,
growing whiter and more tremulous as he went on.

'Don't talk about it. You agitate yourself to no purpose,' said Lady
Maulevrier, with a tranquillity which seemed heartless yet which might
be the result of suppressed feeling. 'If you are to face this scandal
firmly and boldly next January, you must try to recover physical
strength in the meanwhile. Mental energy may come with better health.'