"No. I tried to excuse you to her. I said it to your husband." "Oh--to him," said Adela, assuming an indifference she did not feel. "And I am not sure but death might have been a happier fate for you than this that you have brought upon yourself--disgrace, the neglect of the world, and a dreary, purposeless life." It might have been. Adela felt it so to her heart's core. She bit her lips to conceal their trembling. "All the same, Aunt Margery, he was harsher than he need have been." "Who was?" "Mr. Grubb." "Do you think so, Adela--remembering your long course of scorn and cruelty? My only wonder was that he had not emancipated himself from it long before." Adela flushed, and began to tap her foot on the carpet in incipient rebellion. Of all things, she hated to be reminded of that mistake of the long-continued years. Miss Margery noted the signs. "Child, I do not wish to pain you unnecessarily: but, as the topic has come up, I cannot allow you to mistake my opinion. You had a prince of a husband; a man of rare merit: he has, I truly believe, scarcely his equal in the world----" "I know you always thought him perfection," interrupted Adela. "I _found_ him so. As near perfection as mortal man may be here." "Including his name," she put in, with a touch of her old sauciness. Miss Upton replied not in words: she simply looked at her. It was a long, steady, and very peculiar look, one that Adela did not understand, and it passed away with a half-smile. "For true nobility of mind," resumed Miss Margery, "for uprightness of life, for goodness of heart, who is like him? Look at his generosity to all and every one. Recall one slight recent act of his--what he did for that fantastically foolish lad, Charles Cleveland. Most men, provoked as Mr. Grubb had been by you, and in a degree also by Charles, would have abandoned him to his fate. Not he. That is not his way. When the poor Rector was fretting himself to discover what was next to be done with Charles, and the young fellow was mooning about Netherleigh, his hands in his pockets, trying to make up his mind to go and enlist, for he saw no other opening for him, there came a letter to the Rector from Mr. Grubb. He had interested himself with his correspondents in Calcutta--I'm not sure but it is a branch of his own house--and had obtained Charles a place, out there, at just double the salary he enjoyed here." "And Charley is half-way over the seas on his voyage to it," lightly remarked Adela. "Charley was only a goose, Aunt Margery." "You cannot say that of your husband," sharply returned Miss Margery, not approving the tone. "Unless it was in his love for you. Your husband was fond of you to folly; he indulged your every whim; he would have made your life happy as a dream of Paradise. And how did you requite him?" No answer. The rebellious tapping of the foot had ceased.