For some reason--the whereof was perhaps not known to him, or could not have been explained by even his peculiarly constituted mind--he had attired himself for the two interviews with great care. His black velvet suit, trimmed with silver lace--for he wore mourning for the late viscount--was of the richest; his thick hair was now confined beneath a handsome tye-wig, and his ruffles and breast lace were the finest in his possession. Yet he, knowing himself to be the unutterable scoundrel he was, could scarcely suppose that this sumptuousness of attire was likely to have much effect upon the woman who had deserted him for a cause which he had not the slightest difficulty in imagining. Perhaps, however, it was assumed for the benefit of the Duke of Newcastle, with whom he had had a satisfactory interview. "Lady Fordingbridge is living here," he said quietly, but with a sternness he considered fitting to the occasion, to the grave elderly man who opened the door to him--a man whose appearance, Lady Belrose frequently observed, would have added respectability to the household of a bishop--"show me to her." The footman looked inquiringly at him for a moment; he was not accustomed to such imperious orders from any of her ladyship's visitors, however handsome an appearance they might present. Then he said: "Lady Belrose lives here. Lady Fordingbridge is her guest. And if you wish to see her, sir, I must know whose name to announce." "I am her husband, Lord Fordingbridge. Be good enough to announce that, and at once." The staid manservant gave him a swift glance--it was not to be doubted that many a gossip had been held below stairs as to the reason why Lady Fordingbridge had quitted and caused to be shut up her own house, only to come and dwell at his mistress's--then he invited his lordship to follow him into the morning room on the right of the door. "I will tell her ladyship," he said, and so left him. When he was alone, Lord Fordingbridge, after a hasty glance round the room, and a sneer at the portraits of a vast number of simpering young men which hung on the walls--her admirers, he considered, no doubt--took a seat upon the couch and pondered over the coming interview with his wife. "It is time," he thought, "that things should draw to a conclusion. For," he said, as though addressing Kate herself, "I have had enough of you, my lady. You have long ceased to be a wife to me--never were one, indeed, but for a month, and then but a very indifferent spouse, a cold-hearted, cold-blooded jade; now it is time you should cease to be so much in even name. So, so. You shall be stripped of your borrowed plumage; we will see then how you like the position of affairs. I myself am heartily sick of them."