"At any rate it is impossible. I could only do it by blowing my brains out--which would not be in accordance with my ideas of life. But you are not in anybody's way. There is nothing to be got by poisoning you. If she were to murder me there would be something reasonable in it,--something that one could pardon; but in torturing you she is instigated by a vile ambition. She is afraid, lest her own position should be tarnished by an inferior marriage on your part. There would be something noble in killing me for the sake of dear little Fred. She would be getting something for him who, of course, is most dear to her. But the other is the meanest vanity;--and I will not stand it." This conversation took place early in October, when they had been some weeks at Trafford Park. Hampstead had come and gone, as was his wont, never remaining there above two or three days at a time. Lord Kingsbury, who was ill at ease, had run hither and thither about the country, looking after this or the other property, and staying for a day or two with this or the other friend. The Marchioness had declined to invite any friends to the house, declaring to her husband that the family was made unfit for gaiety by the wicked conduct of his eldest daughter. There was no attempt at shooting the pheasants, or even preparing to shoot them, so great was the general depression. Mr. Greenwood was there, and was thrown into very close intercourse with her ladyship. He fully sympathized with her ladyship. Although he had always agreed with the Marquis,--as he had not forgotten to tell George Roden during that interview in London,--in regard to his lordship's early political tenets, nevertheless his mind was so constituted that he was quite at one with her ladyship as to the disgraceful horror of low associations for noble families. Not only did he sympathize as to the abomination of the Post Office clerk, but he sympathized also fully as to the positive unfitness which Lord Hampstead displayed for that station in life to which he had been called. Mr. Greenwood would sigh and wheeze and groan when the future prospects of the House of Trafford were discussed between him and her ladyship. It might be, or it might not be, well,--so he kindly put it in talking to the Marchioness,--that a nobleman should indulge himself with liberal politics; but it was dreadful to think that the heir to a great title should condescend to opinions worthy of a radical tailor. For Mr. Greenwood agreed with Lord Hampstead about the tailor. Lord Hampstead seemed to him to be a matter simply for sorrow,--not for action. Nothing, he thought, could be done in regard to Lord Hampstead. Time,--time that destroys but which also cures so many things,--would no doubt have its effect; so that Lord Hampstead might in the fulness of years live to be as staunch a supporter of his class as any Duke or Marquis living. Or perhaps,--perhaps, it might be that the Lord would take him. Mr. Greenwood saw that this