'Don't you? Well, never mind. Now you do know. And you know also that you can't talk about it, because it is his secret as well as mine. Why, you don't suppose that the man really does all he says he does, do you? Nobody could. It isn't in nature. Everybody who knows anything at all agrees that there must be a ghost--perhaps more than one. I'm the story ghost. I dare say there's a picture ghost, and a poetry ghost. He's a wonderful clever man, no doubt--it's the cleverest thing in the world to make other people work for you; but don't imagine, pray, that he can write stories of society. Bourgeois stories--about the middle class--his own class--perhaps; but not stories about Us. My stories belong to quite another level. Well, my dear, that is off my mind. Remember that this secret would do a great deal of harm to him as well as to me if it were to get about.' 'Oh! You are altogether--wholly--wrong----' 'My dear, I really do not care if I am wrong. You will not, however, damage his reputation by letting out his secrets? A wife can help her husband in a thousand ways, and especially in keeping up the little deceptions. Thousands of wives, I am told, pass their whole lives in the pretence that they and their husbands are gentlefolk. Alec has been received into a few good houses; and though it is, of course, more difficult to get a woman in than a man, I will really do what I can for you. With a good face, good eyes, a good figure, and a little addition of style, you ought to get on very well by degrees. Or you might take the town by storm, and become a professional beauty.' 'Thank you--but----' 'And there's another thing. As an old friend of Alec's, I feel that I can give advice to you. Let me advise you earnestly, my dear, to make all the haste you can to get rid of your companion. I know all about it. She was sent to your lawyer's by Alec himself. Why? Well, it is an old story, and I suppose he wanted to place her comfortably--or he had some other reason. He's always been a crafty man. You can see that in his eyes.' 'Oh! But I cannot listen to this!' cried Armorel.