“Come, come, Pelham,” said Fitzhenry, while his pale face was slightly coloured: “you are a little exceeding the liberty I gave—tell the story fairly, but no comments. Let Lady Fitzhenry find out my faults herself; she will do that quite soon enough without your assistance; indeed, God knows she has had full opportunity already——” “Lady Fitzhenry has but one fault to find,” interrupted Emmeline, as she looked half reproachfully in her husband’s face: “it is that you persist in calling her by that cruel formal name.” “Bad old habits, my Emmeline,” he replied smiling; “which, if they offend you, shall be conquered; but I _could_ explain why I never _now_ pronounce that name without feelings very, very different from those of coldness or dislike; do I not by it claim you as my own? But I want to have done with my history. So go on, Pelham, only remember no annotations and reflections.” “I was ignorant of what had passed between Fitzhenry and Lady Florence,” continued Pelham, almost tempted to smile at his friend’s sickly petulance: “he had never named her. Had I known of their rupture, I should immediately have entreated you, Lady Fitzhenry, to have come, or at least to have written to him; but not aware of that connexion being at an end, I could not advise a step, which I felt you could hardly take, and which I thought, indeed, would do little good if all was to go on as it had done for some months past. Fitzhenry was seemingly wretched; but so he had long been. I had undeceived him as far as was possible for me to do with regard to your feelings towards him, and I certainly felt it was for him to seek you, and to implore your forgiveness. “Hopeless, therefore, of bringing about a reconciliation between you at that moment, I informed him of my necessary and immediate departure for the continent, and proposed his accompanying me; I thought, by that means, the fatal connexion which seemed the bar to your mutual happiness might be broken; and, knowing well your heart, and certain that affection would, with you, get the better of every other feeling, I trusted that time and circumstances would restore you to each other. Fitzhenry directly with eagerness caught at the idea of leaving England: ‘it is the best thing for us all,’ said he: ‘and it will break to Florence what at present I cannot say—cannot write to her.’