Imperceptibly, naturally, and in no manner wrongfully, as it seemed to Vera, Claude Rutherford's society had become essential to her happiness. She accepted the fact as placidly, and with as complete confidence in him and in herself, as if such a friendship between an idle young man and an imaginative young woman had never been known to end in shame and sorrow. She had lived in the world half a dozen years, and had known of many social tragedies; but as these had not touched any friend she valued, and as she was not a scandal-lover, those dark stories of husbands betrayed and nurseries abandoned had never deeply impressed her, and had been speedily forgotten. Nobody, not even Lady Susie, who was a _mauvaise langue_, had ever hinted at impropriety in her association with her cousin. Signor Provana saw him come and go, and asked no questions. That stern and lofty nature was of the kind that is not easily jealous. Had there been no Iago, Cassio might have come and gone freely in the noble Moor's household, and no shadow of fear would have darkened that great love. Vera's husband was a disappointed man. His dream of a young and loving wife who would make up to him for all that he had missed in boyhood and youth had melted into thin air. He was sensitive and proud, and the memory of his unloved childhood and of his first wife's indifference was never absent from his mind when he considered his relations with his second wife. He thought of his age, he saw his stern, rough features in the glass, and a faint touch of coldness, the fretful weariness of an over-indulged girl, was taken for aversion, and all his pride and all his force of character rose up against the creature he loved too well to judge wisely. It was he who built the wall that parted them; it was his gloomy distrust of himself rather than of Vera that made the gulf between them.