"Yes, I did my best," answered Leonard. "I brought him here, and gave you both your chance." "And Jack said that you spoke very sharply to Mr. Hamleigh that last night." "Yes, I gave him a piece of my mind. I told him that he had no right to come into my house and play fast and loose with my friend's sister." "How did he take it?" "Pretty quietly." "You did not quarrel with him?" "No, it could hardly be called a quarrel. We were both too reasonable--understood each other too thoroughly," answered Leonard, as he got up and went off to his dressing-room, leaving Mopsy sorely perplexed by an indescribable something in his tone and manner. Surely there must be some fatal meaning in that dark evil smile, which changed to so black a frown, and that deep sigh which seemed wrung from the very heart of the man: a man whom Mopsy had hitherto believed to be somewhat poorly furnished with that organ, taken in its poetical significance as a thing that throbs with love and pity. Alone in his dressing-room the lord of the Manor sat down in front of the fire with his boots on the hob, to muse upon the incongruity of his present position in his own house. A year ago he had ruled supreme, sovereign master of the domestic circle, obeyed and ministered to in all humility by a lovely and pure-minded wife. Now he was a cipher in his own house, the husband of a woman who was almost as strange to him as if he had seen her face for the first time on his return from South America. This beautiful brilliant creature, who held him at arm's length, defied him openly with looks and tones in which his guilty soul recognized a terrible meaning--looks and tones which he dare not challenge--this woman who lived only for pleasure, fine dress, frivolity, who had given his house the free-and-easy air of a mess-room, or a club--could this be indeed the woman he had loved in her girlhood, the fair and simple-minded wife whom his mother had trained for him, teaching her all good things, withholding all knowledge of evil. "I'm not going to stand it much longer," he said to himself, with an oath, as he kicked the logs about upon his fire, and then got up to dress for the feast at which he always felt himself just the one guest who was not wanted.