"Well, I declare, one would think you had been consulting with Mr. Chambers," she replied; "for you are raising all the objections that he raised. I did not suppose anything of the kind. You were in love with me when you married me, and then you fell in love with your books, which made you perfectly safe. You have got on exceedingly well, much better than you probably would if you had had a wife dangling about after you. But suppose you had fallen in love with a second woman, don't you think that I would have been a great fool if I could not have made you fall in love with a third woman?" "Unquestionably. But what, may I ask, did Mr. Chambers think of the proceeding?" "Oh, he was greatly opposed to it at first. But I told him plainly that if he did not assist me I should get somebody else who would, though of course I would be very sorry to leave him. When he saw you he thought you a very nice lad--a great improvement on Sir Henry Barton--and he has since come to the conclusion that there was a good deal of method in my madness. He is waiting now with some curiosity to hear how we have got on, for it was from him I heard that you had started for Nice." "Then you have only come since I arrived." "That is all. I got a letter from Mr. Chambers the evening you left London saying you were going that evening to Nice. You had been called to the Bar, and had done all that I wanted you to do, so I made Mrs. O'Flaherty accompany me, and followed you the next night. We heard about the ball from an old colonel whom she knows here, and I made him get us tickets for it, and went to it on the chance of seeing you." "And what would you have done if I had ceased to care for you?" "Well, that I suppose would have depended on what I thought of you. I had lived without you for five years, and if you had changed into a nasty, unamiable creature I could have done without you for the rest of my life. But then nice people don't change into nasty people any more than sapphires or diamonds change into bits of flint or granite." "You have an answer for everything," I said, laughing. "Yes," she replied, "that is what Mr. Chambers used to say. But talking about Mr. Chambers reminds me that the letter you got from him and Mr. Furnival was all a piece of nonsense. The £2,000 a year is secured to you in the marriage settlement, and you would not have forfeited anything if you had insisted on knowing who I was. My object was to put myself out of your mind as much as possible by making you think that you would never see me again, so that you might attend to your books, and fit yourself for the world, and let me know your real opinion of me when you were competent to form one. And now I must get back, for Mrs. O'Flaherty is returning to London this evening." "So soon!" I cried involuntarily, in a tone of pleasurable surprise.