"Well, after that I went to the Continent, and spent about six months.
Then I returned.

"On my return I found every thing changed. She had sent off all the
servants, and brought there a lot of ruffians whom she was unable to
manage, and who threw every thing into confusion. All the gentry
talked of her, and avoided the place. My friends greeted me with
strange, pitying looks. She had cut down most of the woods, and sold
the timber; she had sent off a number of valuable pictures and sold
them. This was to get money, for I afterward found out that avarice
was one of her strongest vices.

"The sight of all this filled me with indignation, and I at once
turned out the whole lot of servants, leaving only two or three maids.
I obtained some of the old servants, and reinstated them. All this
made my wife quite wild. She came up to me once and began to storm,
but I said something to her which shut her up at once.

"One day I came home and found her on the portico, in her
riding-habit. She was whipping one of the maids with the butt end of
her riding-whip. I rushed up and released the poor creature, whose
cries were really heart-rending, when my wife turned on me, like a
fury, and struck two blows over my head. One of the scars is on my
forehead still. See."

And Dacres put aside his hair on the top of his head, just over his
right eye, and showed a long red mark, which seemed like the scar of a
dangerous wound.

"It was an ugly blow," he continued. "I at once tore the whip from