"I am utterly disgusted with Claude. He is throwing her money out of windows, and behaving atrociously into the bargain." "I suppose you mean Mrs. Bellenden. Well, my dear, that was bound to come. Vera has been too much in the clouds for the last year. From what Susan Amphlett told me of her way of life in Rome, she was bound to lose her husband. No man can stomach neglect from a wife; unless all the other women neglect him. And Claude Rutherford is not a negligible quantity." Lady Okehampton had tried her hand upon her young kinsman before this colloquy with her lord, and had found him hopeless. He turned the point of her lectures with a jest. He was light as vanity. He protested that his wife was alone to blame. He adored her, and thought no other woman upon this planet her equal in charm and beauty; but since she had taken up with Symeon and his spooks, she had surrounded herself with an atmosphere of sadness that would send the most devoted husband to the primrose path, in sheer revolt against the gloom of his home. "We are poor creatures," he said, "and we have to be amused." Once only in the course of numerous "wiggings" did Claude show anything like strong feeling, and then emotion came in a tempest that scared his mild kinswoman. She had talked to him about his wife's health. "Vera is absolutely wasting away," she said. "Something must be done, or she will not live till the end of the year." "No, no, no," he cried. "My God, what do you mean? Is that to be the end? Is death to take her from me and leave me in this black world alone? You have no right to say such a thing! By what authority? Who has told you that she is in failing health? I see her every day. She never complains." "You must be blind if you don't see the change in her." "I don't believe there is anything seriously wrong. She is as lovely as ever. No, I don't believe it. You are cruel to come here and frighten me. She is all I have in the world, all, all! Do you understand?" His head drooped suddenly upon the table by which he was sitting, and she heard his hoarse sobs tearing his throat and chest, and saw his long, thin fingers writhing among his hair, the boyish auburn hair with a glint of gold in it that foolish women had praised. "There is no need for despair, Claude. I only wanted to awaken you to the seriousness of the case. We shall save her, in spite of herself. I see you are still fond of her, and yet----"