Then she understood it all. She might have told him that he could spare himself all further trouble in telling, only that to do so would hardly have suited her purpose; therefore she had to listen to the story, very slowly told. Miss Augusta Mildmay had written to him begging him to come to her. He, very much astonished at such a request, had nevertheless obeyed it; and Augusta Mildmay had assured him that his wife, by wicked wiles and lures, was interfering between her and her affianced lover Captain De Baron. Mary sat patiently till she had heard it all,--sat almost without speaking a word; but there was a stern look on her face which he had never seen there before. Still he went on with his determined purpose. "These are the kind of things which are being repeated of you," he said at last. "Susanna made the same complaint. And it had reached Brotherton's ears. He spoke to me of it in frightfully strong language. And now this young lady tells me that you are destroying her happiness." "Well!" "You can't suppose that I can hear all this without uneasiness." "Do you believe it?" "I do not know what to believe. I am driven mad." "If you believe it, George, if you believe a word of it, I will go away from you. I will go back to papa. I will not stay with you to be doubted." "That is nonsense." "It shall not be nonsense. I will not live to hear myself accused by my husband as to another man. Wicked young woman! Oh, what women are and what they can do! She has never been engaged to Captain De Baron." "What is that to you or me?" "Nothing, if you had not told me that I stood in her way." "It is not her engagement, or her hopes, whether ill or well founded, or his treachery to a lady, that concerns you and me, Mary; but that she should send for me and tell me to my face that you are the cause of her unhappiness. Why should she pitch upon you?" "How can I say? Because she is very wicked." "And why should Susanna feel herself obliged to caution me as to this Captain De Baron? She had no motive. She is not wicked." "I don't know that." "And why should my brother tell me that all the world is speaking of your conduct with this very man?" "Because he is your bitterest enemy. George, do you believe it?" "And why, when I come home with all this heavy on my heart, do I find this very man closeted with you?" "Closeted with me!" "You were alone with him." "Alone with him! Of course I am alone with anyone who calls. Would you like me to tell the servant that Captain De Baron is to be excluded,--so that all the world might know that you are jealous?" "He must be excluded." "Then you must do it. But it will be unnecessary. As you believe all this, I will tell my father everything and will go back to him. I will not live here, George, to be so suspected that the very servants have to be told that I am not to be allowed to see one special man." "No; you will go down into the country with me."