And so they went on with these bitter and defiant recriminations--Mr. Kingston, of course, insisting upon giving due prominence to his own wrongs, which were very real ones in their way, and both of them making reckless proposals with respect to their domestic arrangements--until suddenly, without any apparent warning, Rachel went off into wild hysterics, and the doctor had to be sent for. Perhaps it was the best thing that could have happened under all the circumstances. She was very ill for several hours; and in the morning, when passion was spent, and she was lying in her bed still and quiet, with her head swathed in wet bandages, her husband knelt down beside her and asked her to forgive him. "It was for love of you that I did it," he said; "and _I_ am punished, too. We can't undo it now, Rachel, if we would, and there's no good in making a public talk and scandal. Let bygones be bygones, won't you, dear?" She lifted her heavy eyes to his face. They were cold and hard no longer, but unutterably dull and sad. "Yes," she said wearily; "we have both been wrong; we have injured one another. We must try to make the best of it; it is the only thing we can do now." He kissed her and stroked her face, and adjusted the wet bandages. "There, there," he said soothingly, "we both forgot ourselves a little. We said a great deal more than we meant, I daresay. People do when they are out of temper." And he bade her go to sleep, told her he would take her for a drive in the afternoon if she felt well enough, and went forth with the sense that he was treating her magnanimously to receive and reply to inquiries after her health in person. By noon, "all Melbourne," according to Mrs. Hardy's calculation, was aware that Mr. and Mrs. Kingston had had a quarrel (though there was every variety of conjecture as to the cause of it, and a division of opinion as to which was the most to blame); but it was not Mr. Kingston's fault if all Melbourne was not satisfied by nightfall that the quarrel had been made up. CHAPTER VI. MRS. READE MEETS HER MATCH. "Will Mr. Roden Dalrymple do Mrs. Edward Reade the great favour to call upon her to-morrow (Thursday) morning, if convenient to him, between ten and twelve o'clock? She is particularly anxious to see him upon a matter of private business." This note was despatched from South Yarra to Menzies on a certain night in the early part of December, a few weeks after the Town Hall ball. Mr. Dalrymple had just come to Melbourne, and Mrs. Reade, through the gossip of afternoon visitors, had heard of it. She had heard of a great deal more besides--from Laura's husband chiefly; and the critical nature of the situation, and her anxious solicitude for Rachel's welfare in the midst of the perils and temptations to which, while a meeting with her old lover was possible, she would be exposed, made it seem absolutely necessary that the person who was most capable of doing so effectually should interfere once more.