‘But you will be his friend?’

’Your husband shall certainly be my friend;—­or, if not, the fault shall not be mine.  It shall all be forgotten, Hetta,—­as nearly as such things may be forgotten.  But I had nothing to say to him till I had seen you.’  At that moment the door was opened and Lady Carbury entered the room, and, after her greeting with her cousin, looked first at her daughter and then at Roger.  ‘I have come up,’ said he, ’to signify my adhesion to this marriage.’  Lady Carbury’s face fell very low.  ’I need not speak again of what were my own wishes.  I have learned at last that it could not have been so.’

‘Why should you say...