"What!" exclaimed Barbara, with a start. "It is beneath me to repel such a calumny; but to satisfy your absurd doubt, I tell you plainly you were wrong." "Will you tell me," asked Frank, in a sad voice, "that he did not walk with yop and talk with you apart? Can you deny it?" "No!" returned Barbara. "He did both walk and talk with me; he had something very special to say to me, and he said it." "And it was--?" "I cannot tell you; it was told to me in confidence; it concerns the reputation of a third person, and I cannot mention it, even to you." "Then, by the Lord, I'll have an end to this!" said Frank, in a sudden access of passion. "Listen here, Barbara; I'll have no captains, nor any one else, coming to repose confidences with which I'm not to be made acquainted, in my wife! I'll have no shrubbery-walks and whisperings with you! Such things may be the fashion in the circles in which you have lived; but I don't hold with them!" He could have bitten his tongue out the next instant, when Barbara said, in an icy voice, "It may be the fashion in the circles in which _you_ have lived to swear at one's wife, and shout at her so that the coachman hears you; but I don't hold with it, nor, what's more, will I permit it!" She never spoke again till they reached home, when she stepped leisurely out of the carriage, ignoring Frank's proffered arm, and went silently to bed. CHAPTER XXVI. SHOWING WHO WERE "PIGOTT AND WELLS." Mr. Simnel, the secretary, sat at his desk, hard at work as usual, but evidently tempering the dulness of the official minutes with some recollections of a lively nature, as now and then he would put down his pen, and smile pleasantly, nursing his knee the while. "Yes," he said softly to himself, "I think I'll do it to-day. I've waited long enough; now I'll put Kitty on to the scent, and stand the racket. _Ruat caelum!_ I'll ride quietly up there this afternoon;" and he touched the small handbell, with which he summoned his private secretary. In response to this bell,--not the private secretary, who was lunching with a couple of friends and discussing the latest fashionable gossip,--the door was opened by Mr. Pringle, who begged to know his chief's wishes. "Eh?" said Simnel, raising his head at the strange voice; "oh, Grammont at lunch, I suppose?--how do you do, Mr. Pringle? I want all the letters brought in at once, please; I'm going away early to-day." "Certainly, sir," said Mr. Pringle, who objected on principle to interviews with great official swells, such interviews being generally connected in his mind with rebukes known as "carpetings." "I'll see about it, sir." "Thank you, Mr. Pringle. How are all your people? bow is Mrs. Schröder? who is your cousin, I think." "Yes, my cousin. She's all right; but I'm sorry to say my uncle Mr. Townshend is very ill; so ill that he leaves town for the Continent to-night, and is likely to be away some time." "Dear me! Pm very sorry to hear that."