“Well, I’ve made a pretty mess of it now, and no mistake! Of all things in the world for her to have fixed upon--to want to know about Arabella; and poor Arabella has behaved so nicely and kindly too in this affair! I _can’t_ tell her! besides, there’s my promise--come what may I’ll keep my promise; but I am an unlucky dog as ever lived! Ah! I never ought to have married, that’s the whole truth. Women don’t seem to understand me, and I’m sure I don’t understand them; whether I’m stern or whether I’m kind it all turns out alike, and all wrong. Poor, dear, little Alice! she is making herself just as miserable as she has made me; and, for the life of me, I don’t know how to say or do anything to mend matters! I must leave it to time, I suppose. Perhaps her mother may talk her into a happier frame of mind. I am glad she is going back to the Grange; I think I’ll leave her there for a short time--home influences may soften her, and induce her to judge me more charitably. I’m certain it’s all my own fault, somehow! She was as sweet-tempered as an angel when I married her.” He continued to pace the room, and after some moments a new notion seemed to strike him. “I wonder whose been putting these ideas about Arabella into her head,” he resumed; “somebody has been telling her about the Florence business, that’s clear--lies most likely, and in order to set her against me. That man D’Almayne, I mistrust him--he’s playing a deep game of some kind; and his manner to Kate Crane I disapprove of strongly. If he has been meddling--if he has dared to say or insinuate anything against me to Alice, by heaven, I’ll--I’ll--no, I could not trust myself to horsewhip him, at least not just yet, I should kill the scoundrel. I’ve a great mind to run up to London, when I’ve taken Alice to the Grange, and try and find out something about it; but I won’t be hasty--I _must_ not! the interests at stake are too important--Alice’s happiness for life, to say nothing of my own, which is bound up in hers, depends upon how I behave for the next few months--no; I won’t act rashly or hastily, nothing shall induce me to do so!”