"Oh, yes, yes, yes! most generous, and yet it was always forestalled to pay old bills: and then--and then my wants were so many. I was so weak. Madame Dalmas has had dresses I could have worn when I had new ones on credit instead, and--and Harris has had double wages to compensate for what a lady's maid thinks her perquisites; even articles I might have given to poor gentlewomen I have been mean enough to sell. Oh, Walter! I have been very wrong; but I have been miserable for at least three years. I felt as if an iron cage were rising around me,--from which you only could free me--and yet, till to-day, I think I could have died rather than confess to you." "My poor girl! Why should you have feared me? Have I ever been harsh?" "Oh, no!--no--but you are so just--so strict in all these things--" "I hope I am; and yet not the less do I understand how all this has come about. Now, Lucy,--now that you have ceased to fear me--tell me the amount." She strove to speak, but could not. "Three figures or four? tell me." "I am afraid--yes, I am afraid four," murmured Lady Lucy, and hiding her face from his view; "yes, four figures, and my quarter received last week gone every penny." "Lucy, every bill shall be paid this day; but you must reward me by being happy." "Generous! dearest! But, Walter, if you had been a poor man, what then?" "Ah, Lucy, that would have been a very different and an infinitely sadder story. Instead of the relinquishment of some indulgence hardly to be missed, there might have been ruin, and poverty, and disgrace. You have one excuse,--at least you knew that I could pay at last." "Ah, but at what a price! The price of your love and confidence." "No, Lucy--for your confession has been voluntary; and I will not ask myself what I should have felt had the knowledge come from another. After all, you have fallen to a temptation which besets the wives of the rich far more than those of poor or struggling gentlemen. Tradespeople are shrewd enough in one respect--they do not press their commodities and long credit in quarters where ultimate payment seems doubtful--though--" "They care not what domestic misery they create among the rich." "Stay: there are faults on both sides, not the least of them being that girls in your station are too rarely taught the value of money, or that integrity in money matters should be to them a point of honor second only to one other. Now listen, my darling, before we dismiss this painful subject forever. You have the greatest confidence in your maid, and _entre nous_ she must be a good deal in the secret. We shall bribe her to discretion, however, by dismissing Madame Dalmas at once and forever. As soon as you can spare Harris, I will send her to change a check at Coutts', and then, for expedition and security, she shall take on the brougham and make a round to these tradespeople. Meanwhile, I will drive you in the phaeton to look at the bracelet." "Oh, no-no, dear Walter, not the bracelet."