‘I have a house of my own about five miles from here, but I only returned to it yesterday. And so you are really Sir Roland’s wife. Why, you are a mere girl.’ ‘Indeed, you are mistaken. It is a long time since I was a girl. I am twenty-six!’ ‘And I am twenty years older than yourself, so you see I have a right to consider you a girl. But you have been crying. Surely you have no trouble now. I thought all your troubles lay in the want of means.’ ‘We _were_ very, very poor,’ says Juliet, with proud simplicity, ‘and I am hardly accustomed to the use of money yet. But I was crying—it is very foolish of me, I know, but I cannot help it—because my husband is going away.’ ‘Going away! and where?’ ‘To Italy, with his sister, Mrs Carnaby-Hicks. He has been very worried and upset lately, Lady Tresham, and he wants change, and I know it will be best for him—but—but—’ ‘You feel the responsibility of being left alone; that is very natural. Yet, perhaps, it will teach you self-dependence. And for my own part, I am glad Sir Roland is away just now. I want to make friends with you, my dear; to help you, if it is in my power. I know your husband has thought hard things of me, and, perhaps, of poor Sir Ralph into the bargain; but in what we did we believed we were acting for the best. Now, all that is over; you will neither of you ever want money again, but you may need advice. And I should like to begin by advising you. Why do you not take this trip with your husband? You look pale and worn out. It would do you good as well as him.’ ‘He does not want me,’ says Juliet, sadly; ‘he is only going in order to get away from me.’ ‘That is hardly possible. You are a wife of whom any man must be proud.’ ‘I used to be told I was pretty,’ replies Lady Tresham, with a faint blush; ‘but that was a long time ago.’ ‘Rubbish, child; you are in your prime. And you have six children; and I have not even one. What a happy woman you ought to be.’ But Lady Tresham does not answer. The tears are rising thickly to her eyes, and falling down her cheeks again. ‘I would give them all up—yes, every one!’ she cries, hysterically, ‘to regain their father’s love. Oh, Lady Tresham, what must you think of me for speaking like this to an utter stranger?’ ‘Cease to look on me as a stranger, then, dear child, and let us be friends. Cannot I do anything to help you out of this heavy trouble?’ ‘Nothing; nothing. It is incurable, and I must bear it as best I can. He loved me whilst I had the means to make myself look pretty; when I had a colour in my cheeks, and a gloss upon my hair. But I have lost all that, Lady Tresham. Days and nights of sickness and privation have robbed me of my beauty and his love. And then my temper grew irritable, and he sickened of his home and me; and I shall never know any happiness in this world again.’ ‘If you have somewhat wearied your husband’s love in poverty, you must regain it in prosperity,’ says Sir Ralph’s widow.