“Alfred,” she said, “if you do not love me, I think at least you should learn to treat me with respect. If I am so distasteful to you we had better separate. I cannot go on bearing all that I have borne patiently for months. Let me go to Florence and Walter; they will be kind to me, and I will never be a burden upon you. The allowance that Sir William Rammage gives me would keep me in comfort alone, and it struck me the other day that, when he dies, perhaps he will leave me something.” He looked at her with sudden alarm. The cowed look seemed to have gone from her face to his, and as she saw it she gathered strength, and went on, “I cannot be insulted, Alfred; I cannot and will not.” “Don’t be foolish, Anne; I am irritable sometimes, and I am not strong——” “That is why I have borne so much from you.” “I will go to Witley with you,” he said, ignoring her remark altogether; “that is, if you like, and can raise the money to go. I have none.” [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. “Fisher was quite pleased when I asked him if we could get off to Monte Carlo at Whitsuntide for a fortnight,” Walter told Florence a few weeks later. “Wasn’t he shocked at your gambling propensities?” “Not a bit. He looked as if he would like to go too; said, in rather a pompous manner”—and Walter imitated his editor exactly—“‘Certainly, certainly; I think, Hibbert, your wife deserves a little treat of some sort after your long absence in the winter, and I am very glad if it is in my power to help you to give it to her.’ He looked like the King of the Cannibal Islands making an Act of Parliament all by himself.” “You are a ridiculous dear.” “Thank you, Floggie. Fisher’s a nice old chap, and I am very fond of him.” “Do you know,” she said, in rather a shocked tone, “Ethel Dunlop said one day that she believed he looked upon himself as a sort of minor providence?” “Well, he does go about minor-providencing a good deal—which reminds me that he said he was coming, in a day or two, to ask you to take him out to buy a wedding-present for Ethel.” “He’ll buy her a Crown Derby tea-set, or a sugar-basin with a very large pair of tongs, see if he doesn’t. Ethel said he ought to have married Aunt Anne.” “He would have been a thousand times better than Wimple. I wonder how those gay young people are getting on at Witley, and whether they want anything more before we start.” “I think they must be all right at present,” Florence said. “We sent them a good big box of stores when they went to the cottage; and I know you gave her a little money, dear Walter, and we paid up her debts, so that she cannot be worried. Then, of course, she has her hundred a year from Sir William to fall back upon, and Mr. Wimple probably has something.” “Oh yes, I suppose they are all right; besides, I don’t feel too generous towards that beggar Wimple.”