Mrs. Jerningham took out the packet and contemplated it thoughtfully. “I wish he had read the letters,” she said to herself; “it would have been much better for both of us if he had read them.” She looked at the address upon the topmost envelope: “E. J., _Post Office_, _Vigo Street_.” “It was very wrong to have them directed to a post-office,” she thought to herself. She packed the letters in a sheet of paper, and directed the packet to her husband, with a brief note, the composition of which cost her much trouble. She shed some few tears while she was writing this note; but she took care that they should not fall on the paper. There was a certain firmness and decision in her manner which was scarcely compatible with the feelings of an utterly guilty woman. Mrs. Jerningham had a long interview with her husband’s lawyer on the following day, an interview which had in it none of the unpleasant elements of a “scene.” After this the house in Park Lane was abandoned by both master and mistress. Mr. Jerningham was abroad; Mrs. Jerningham at one of the country houses. It was not till the following season that the world in which the Jerninghams lived became aware that the Jerninghams had parted. So small an amount of union is necessary to constitute marriage in this upper world that the fact of the separation only became patent on the establishment of the toy-villa at Hampton. CHAPTER X. THERE IS ALWAYS THE SKELETON. IN this bright summer-time the gardens of the toy-villa were a paradise of roses. The lawns were dotted by great clumps and mounds of blossom; red and white damask and maiden’s-blush jostling one another in rich profusion. Tall standard-roses climbed skyward on iron rods, rustic baskets brimmed over with the precious flowers; and there were so many creeping tendrils entwining thin iron-work arches and airy colonnades, that the visitor who approached Mrs. Jerningham made his way to her presence beneath a gentle shower of perfumed petals. Under the falling rose-petals went the editor of the _Areopagus_ one sultry morning. He had come from London by rail, and the dust of the journey was white upon his dark-blue coat. He looked a little wan and jaded in the searching July sunshine, a little the worse for late hours and perennial anxieties; and he sighed ever so faintly as a warm gust of summer wind flung a spray of blossom against his face.