"Perhaps you have not heard about it. It was there Markland spent the last afternoon before his accident, almost the last day of his life. It gives her a bitter sort of association with the place." "Markland?" said Dick. "Oh yes, I remember. Lord Markland, who---- He died, didn't he? It may not be a satisfactory household, but still he might have gone there without any harm." "Oh, I don't suppose there was any harm, except the love of bad company; that seems a fascination which some men cannot resist. I don't care two straws myself whether there was harm or not; but it is a bitter sort of recollection for _her_." "They were both quite young, were they not?" "Markland was over thirty," said the young man, who was but twenty-two; "and she is--oh, she is, I suppose, about my age." He knew, indeed, exactly what was her age; but what did that matter to a stranger? She was superior to him, it was true, in that as in all other things. "I have heard they were not very happy," Dick said. He cared no more for the Marklands than he did for the domestic concerns of the guard who had looked at his ticket two minutes ago; but anything answered for conversation, which in the present state of his mind he could not exert himself to make brilliant. "Oh, happy!" cried Warrender. "How could they be happy? She a woman with the finest perceptions, and a mind--such as you seldom find in a woman; and he the sort of person who could find pleasure in the conversation that goes on in a house like that." Dick did not say anything for some time; he felt as though all the people he met in these parts must go on like this, in absolute unconsciousness, giving him blow after blow. "I don't mean to take up the cudgels for that sort of people," he said at last; "but they are--not always stupid, you know." But to this semi-defence his companion gave no heed. "She was no more than a child when she was married," said Warrender, with excitement, "a little girl out of the nursery. How was she to know? She had never seen anybody, and to expect her to be able to judge at sixteen----" "That is always bad," said Dick, musing. He was like the other, full of his own thoughts. "Yet some girls are very much developed at sixteen. I knew a fellow once who---- And she went entirely to the bad." "What are you talking of?" cried Warrender, almost roughly. "She was like a little angel herself, and knew nothing different--and when that fellow--who had been a handsome fellow they say--fell in love with her, and would not leave her alone for a moment, I, for one, forgive her for being deceived. I admire her for it," he went on. "She was as innocent as a flower. Was it possible she could suspect what sort of a man he was? It has given her such a blow in her ideal that I doubt if she will ever recover. It seems as if she could not believe again in genuine, unselfish love." "Perhaps it is too early to talk to her about such subjects."