"I will not trouble your ladyship to leave the room," said Miles, rising coldly from his seat. "I am going to my studio; I should have remembered that husbands are often _de trop_." "Pray, stay, Miles!" exclaimed Minnie, seizing his arm, like the Minnie of old. "There _can_ be nothing which you may not hear, that is, if it only concerns me," and she looked at Dora inquiringly. "I should prefer speaking to you alone," answered the other coldly. "It is something which distresses me much, yet almost too painful, I hope, to be true." "May I ask," said he, pausing on the threshold of the door, "if it be any thing relating to Lord Randolph Gray?" "It is!" answered she, with a look of surprise. "And--my wife?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation. "Then you are not in ignorance of it?" she inquired, with an amazed look, mingled with one of contempt. "And you and Minnie are----" "Friends, as you see," he said, turning back and reseating himself, and by a movement of generous feeling, taking his wife's trembling hand in his. "Now, Lady Dora," he continued, "you may tell all you have heard, and we may be able in a measure, to correct any inaccuracies." "How do you mean, Mr. Tremenhere?" she said haughtily. "Do you accuse me of possible untruth?" "Not you, Lady Dora, but your informant, whoever he may be." "It was a lady," she replied. "The conversation turned one evening, in Brighton, on paintings; your name was mentioned flatteringly as an artist of genius," and then she paused. The remainder was embarrassing to tell. "Go on, Lady Dora," he said, in outward seeming calm. "I had better tell you," she hastily rejoined; "for, if untrue, you may find means of silencing the slander." "_If_," he uttered; "then your ladyship gives credit to the world's vile attack upon this poor girl; for I guess all you would say." Whatever his own fears at times might be in the warring of his spirit, he was resolved to uphold Minnie before all. Lady Dora related all she had heard. In short, the whole affair of Minnie's discovery at Uplands, and her subsequent meeting with Lord Randolph at Mary's. It had been told with severe animadversions on the meanness of Mr. Tremenhere, whose marriage had been kept a secret from the world until this affair brought it to light, and who could receive his wife again, and even Lord Randolph, knowing, to say the least, of great imprudence on his wife's part. Much of this Lady Dora allowed to escape her, as having been freely discussed at the club to which Miles belonged. "Oh, Dora!" cried the agitated Minnie, "how could you, for one moment, believe so wicked a thing against me!--To think I could love any one but Miles! And I must be doubly base, to even listen to common flattery or gallantry from Lord Randolph, to whom you are engaged!"