‘Now, Nora, none of your sneers, if you please,’ said Jack Portland; ‘don’t be foolish, and make a regular quarrel of this matter. Let me tell you this--that so long as you insult me on every occasion I shall never give you back those letters. After all, they are legally mine, and you have no right to demand their restoration. If I return them, it will be as a favour; and people do not, as a rule, grant favours to ladies who call them liars and scoundrels and cheats for their pains. And now, had you not better go back to the Hall? I have shown you what I can do by bringing you here, and I don’t mean to do anything more for you to-night. When you have learned how to coax and wheedle a little, instead of bully and storm, perhaps you may persuade me to give you back those much-longed-for letters.’ The countess seemed to be perfectly subdued. To those who knew her as she generally was, and especially to the man before her, the change in her voice and demeanour would have seemed a marvel. ‘Yes, I will go,’ she replied in a meek tone; ‘but I should like to have a few words with you first, Jack. I cannot think what has changed you so; but you are not the same man you were at Malta. Still, I do not think you can have quite forgotten that time when we first met, and thought we loved each other. It was my father, Sir Richard Abinger, who separated us, as you know well, and even if he had not done so, I do not think you would have wished to marry me, for you had no income, and I should only have been a great burden to you. So, is it quite fair, do you think, to visit the fact of our parting on my head, especially now that I am married to another man? Those letters of mine--written to you when I considered we were engaged lovers--I daresay they are very silly and spooney, and full of the nonsense people generally write under such circumstances; but I cannot think there is anything compromising in them, as you would lead me to believe. I feel sure, if I were to show them to my husband, he would forgive and absolve me from all thought of wrong. But will you not spare me such an act of self-humiliation? Cannot you be man enough to forgive a girl who has never done you any harm for having caused you a little mortification? Will you not do so--for the sake of Malta and the time when you thought you loved me?’