Mrs Maidan, however, was not a Powys married to an
Ashburnham; she was a poor little O'Flaherty whose husband was
a boy of country parsonage origin. So there was no mistaking the
sob she let go as she went desolately away along the corridor. But
Leonora was still going to play up. She opened the door of
Ashburnham's room quite ostentatiously, so that Florence should
hear her address Edward in terms of intimacy and liking.
"Edward," she called. But there was no Edward there.

You understand that there was no Edward there. It was then, for
the only time of her career, that Leonora really compromised
herself--She exclaimed . . . "How frightful! . . . Poor little Maisie!
. . ."

She caught herself up at that, but of course it was too late. It was a
queer sort of affair. . . .

I want to do Leonora every justice. I love her very dearly for one
thing and in this matter, which was certainly the ruin of my small
household cockle-shell, she certainly tripped up. I do not
believe--and Leonora herself does not believe--that poor little
Maisie Maidan was ever Edward's mistress. Her heart was really
so bad that she would have succumbed to anything like an
impassioned embrace. That is the plain English of it, and I
suppose plain English is best. She was really what the other two,
for reasons of their own, just pretended to be. Queer, isn't it? Like
one of those sinister jokes that Providence plays upon one. Add to
this that I do not suppose that Leonora would much have minded,
at any other moment, if Mrs Maidan had been her husband's