He paused a moment, and then found the courage to answer her. "No--none," he said. Had she confined herself to her own assumed wrongs, her own pretended affection,--had she contented herself with quarrelling with him for his carelessness, and had then called upon him for some renewed expression of love,--he would hardly have been strong enough to withstand her. But she could not keep her tongue from speaking evil of his wife. From the moment in which he had called Mary an angel, it was necessary to her comfort to malign the angel. She did not quite know the man, or the nature of men generally. A man, if his mind be given that way, may perhaps with safety whisper into a woman's ear that her husband is untrue to her. Such an accusation may serve his purpose. But the woman, on her side, should hold her peace about the man's wife. A man must be very degraded indeed if his wife be not holy to him. Lord George had been driving his wife almost mad during the last twenty-four hours by implied accusations, and yet she was to him the very holy of holies. All the Popenjoy question was as nothing to him in comparison with the sanctity of her name. And now, weak as he was, incapable as he would have been, under any other condition of mind, of extricating himself from the meshes which this woman was spinning for him, he was enabled to make an immediate and most salutary plunge by the genuine anger she had produced. "No, none," he said. "Oh, very well. The angel is everything to you, and I am nothing?" "Yes; my wife is everything to me." "How dared you, then, come here and talk to me of love? Do you think I will stand this,--that I will endure to be treated in this way? Angel, indeed! I tell you that she cares more for Jack De Baron's little finger than for your whole body. She is never happy unless he is with her. I don't think very much of my cousin Jack, but to her he is a god." "It is false." "Very well. It is nothing to me; but you can hardly expect, my Lord, that I should hear from you such pleasant truths as you have just told me, and not give you back what I believe to be truth in return." "Have I spoken evil of any one? But I will not stay here, Mrs. Houghton, to make recriminations. You have spoken most cruelly of a woman who never injured you, who has always been your firm friend. It is my duty to protect her, and I shall always do so in all circumstances. Good morning." Then he went before she could say another word to him.