From Brighton terminus we had a drive of two or three miles across country to get to Prior's Glebe--as Lady Bevere's house was named. It was old-fashioned and commodious, and stood in a large square garden that was encircled by a thick belt of towering shrubs. Nothing was to be seen around it but a huge stretch of waste land; half a-mile-off, rose a little church and a few scattered cottages. "The girls must find this lively!" exclaimed Roger, taking a comprehensive look about him as we drove up in the twilight. Lady Bevere, kind, gentle, simple-mannered as ever, received us lovingly. Mr. Brandon kissed her, and she kissed me and Roger. It was the first Christmas Roger had spent at home since rushing into that mad act of his; he had always invented some excuse for declining. The eldest son, Edmund, was in the navy; the second, George, was in the Church; Roger was the third; and the youngest, John, had a post in a merchant's house in Calcutta. Of the four girls, only the eldest, Mary, and the youngest were at home. The little one was named Susan, but they called her Tottams. The other two were on a visit to their aunt, the late Sir Edmund Bevere's sister. Dinner was waiting when we got in, and I could not snatch half a word with Roger while making ready for it. He and I had two little rooms opening to each other. But when we went upstairs for the night we could talk at will; and I put my candle down on his chest of drawers. "How are things going with you, Roger?" "Don't talk of it," he cried, with quite a burst of emotion. "Things cannot be worse than they are." "I fancy you have not pulled up much, as Pitt used to call it, have you, old friend? Your hands and your face tell tales." "How can I pull up?" he retorted. "You promised that you would." "Ay. Promised! When all the world's against a fellow, he may not be able to keep his promises. Perhaps may not care to." "How is Lizzie?" I said then, dropping my voice. "Don't talk of her," repeated Bevere, in a tone of despair; despair if I ever heard it. It shut me up. "Johnny, I'm nearly done over; sick of it all," he went on. "You don't know what I have to bear." "Still--as regards yourself, you might pull up," I persisted, for to give in to him, and his mood and his ways, would never do. "You might if you chose, Bevere." "I suppose I might, if I had any hope. But there's none; none. People tell us that as we make our bed so we must lie upon it. I made mine in an awful fashion years ago, and I must pay the penalty." "I gather from this--forgive me, Bevere--that you and your wife don't get along together." "Get along! Things with her are worse than you may think for. She--she--well, _she_ has not done her best to turn out well. Heaven knows I'd have tried _my_ best; the thing was done, and nothing else was left for us: but she has not let me. We are something like cat-and-dog now, and I am not living with her." "No!"