“I won’t say that it was not partly my fault,” she replied, with a complacent nod of her head. “After awhile we didn’t get on--I was suspicious of him from the first, as I’ve told you; I know he never meant honest and right; and he didn’t like being found out. Nobody as I know of does. We got to be sick of each other after awhile. He was as poor as Job; and he has the devil’s own temper. If you think I was a patient Grizel to stand that, you’re very much mistaken. Ill-usage and slavery, and nothing to live upon! I soon showed him as that wouldn’t do for me. The baby died,” she added indifferently--“poor little thing, it was a blessing that the Almighty took it! I fretted at first, but I felt it was a deal better off than it could ever have been with me; and then I took another situation. I had been in Grant and Robinson’s before I married, so as I didn’t want to make a show of myself with them that knew me, I took back my single name again. They are rather low folks there, and I didn’t stay long; and I found I liked my liberty a deal better than studying his temper, and being left to starve, as I was with him; so I kept on, now here, now there, till I came to Tottenham’s. And here I’ve never had nothing to complain of,” said Miss Lockwood, “till some of these prying women found out about the baby. I made up my mind to say nothing about who I was, seeing circumstances ain’t favourable. But I sha’n’t deny it; why should I deny it? it ain’t for my profit to deny it. Other folks may take harm, but I can’t; and when I saw you, then I felt that the right moment had come, and that I must speak.” “Why did not you speak before he was married?--had you no feeling that, if you were safe, another woman was about to be ruined?” said Edgar, bitterly. “Why did you not speak then?” “Am I bound to take care of other women?” said Miss Lockwood. “I had nobody to take care of me; and I took care of myself--why couldn’t she do the same? She was a lady, and had plenty of friends--I had nobody to take care of me.” “But it would have been to your own advantage,” said Edgar. “How do you suppose anyone can believe that you neglected to declare yourself Arthur Arden’s wife at the time when it would have been such a great thing for you, and when he was coming into a good estate, and could make his wife a lady of importance? You are not indifferent to your own comfort--why did you not speak then?”