“We cannot force our likes and dislikes,” I said.

“Well, you are married now, and part and parcel of him, and a wife’s duty is to keep her own husband from hussies—­viscountesses or no they can call themselves.”

“What do you wish me to do?”

“Why, tax him with it when he comes home to-night.  Let him see you know and won’t stand it.  It’s all your fault for not lovin’ him, and your duty now’s to keep him in the path of virtue.”

“May I say you informed me of his behavior?  Because how otherwise could I account for my knowledge?  He would know I should never have thought of opening or looking at his letters myself.”

Mrs. Gurrage was not the least ashamed of having done this, to me, most dishonorable thing.  She could not see the matter from my point of view.

I remember grandmamma once told me that servants and people of the lower classes always think it is their right to read any one’s letters they come across, so I suppose my mother-in-law cannot help her standard of honor being different to ours.

“You mustn’t make mischief between my boy and me,” she said.  “You must invent something—­think of some other way.”

“But I cannot tell a lie about it.  I shall say you have received disquieting information; I will not say how.  Otherwise, I will not speak to him at all about it.”

Mrs. Gurrage burst into tears.

“There—­it’s breakin’ my heart!” she sobbed, “and you don’t care a brass farthing!”

“Of course I care,” I said, feebly.

* * * * *

Oh, grandmamma!  For once you must have been wrong, and it would have been better for me to have worked in the gutter!  I wonder if you felt that at the end.  But we had given our word.  Augustus held us to it, and no Calincourt had ever broken his word.

By the afternoon post came a letter from Sir Antony Thornhirst.  He had returned from Scotland, he said, and hoped we would soon pay him our promised visit.

It was a short note, dry and to the point, with nothing in it unnecessary in the way of words.  I do not know why I read it over several times.  His writing gave me comfort.  I felt as if there was some one human who would understand things.

* * * * *

When I was dressing for dinner, Augustus returned.  He shuffled into the room without knocking, while McGreggor was brushing my hair.

He seemed to have forgotten the scene of the morning, and was in a most amiable mood.  He had brought me a new muff chain, in wonderfully good taste; he could never have chosen it himself.  It is so difficult to thank people for things when you would like to throw them in the fire rather than receive them.

However, I did my best.

McGreggor felt it her duty to leave the room.  Would this be a good opportunity to get over what I had promised my mother-in-law to say to Augustus?  Oh, it was an ugly moment.