and he was continually guilty of the great sin of speaking evil of
the woman whose name he should have been anxious to protect. In
both cases our friend Mrs. Talboys took a warm interest, and in each
of them she sympathised with the present husband against the absent
wife.

Of the consolation which she offered in the latter instance we used
to hear something from Mackinnon. He would repeat to his wife, and
to me and my wife, the conversations which she had with him. "Poor
Brown;" she would say, "I pity him, with my very heart's blood."

"You are aware that he has comforted himself in his desolation,"
Mackinnon replied.

"I know very well to what you allude. I think I may say that I am
conversant with all the circumstances of this heart-blighting
sacrifice." Mrs. Talboys was apt to boast of the thorough
confidence reposed in her by all those in whom she took an interest.
"Yes, he has sought such comfort in another love as the hard cruel
world would allow him."

"Or perhaps something more than that," said Mackinnon. "He has a
family here in Rome, you know; two little babies."

"I know it, I know it," she said. "Cherub angels!" and as she spoke
she looked up into the ugly face of Marcus Aurelius; for they were
standing at the moment under the figure of the great horseman on the
Campidoglio. "I have seen them, and they are the children of
innocence. If all the blood of all the Howards ran in their veins
it could not make their birth more noble!"