Francis owned it, cared not to disguise it, rebuked Martha with her
violent temper and angry imperiousness, and, worst of all, with her
inferiority and her age.

Her reply was, that if he did not keep his promise she would carry his
letters into every court in the kingdom--letters in which his love was
pledged to her ten thousand times; and, after exposing him to the world
as the perjurer and traitor he was, she would kill herself.

Frank had one more interview with Helen, whose mother was dead then, and
who was living companion with old Lady Pontypool,--one more interview,
where it was resolved that he was to do his duty; that is, to redeem his
vow; that is, to pay a debt cozened from him by a sharper; that is, to
make two honest people miserable. So the two judged their duty to be, and
they parted.

The living fell in only too soon; but yet Frank Bell was quite a grey and
worn-out man when he was inducted into it. Helen wrote him a letter on
his marriage, beginning "My dear Cousin," and ending "always truly
yours." She sent him back the other letters, and the lock of his hair--
all but a small piece. She had it in her desk when she was talking to the
Major.

Bell lived for three or four years in his living, at the end of which
time, the Chaplainship of Coventry Island falling vacant, Frank applied
for it privately, and having procured it, announced the appointment to
his wife. She objected, as she did to everything. He told her bitterly
that he did not want her to come: so she went. Bell went out in Governor
Crawley's time, and was very intimate with that gentleman in his later
years. And it was in Coventry Island, years after his own marriage, and