Maude was silent for some minutes, wiping the tears from her face, and trying to escape from the demonstrative sympathy of a Skye terrier, who had been frantic at the sight of his mistress’s distress; and then she exclaimed, with sudden energy that almost startled Miss Desmond,-- “Yes, I will take your advice, Julia; and Francis _shall_ explain himself--as--as I’m sure he can.” This was a challenge which Julia was too wise to take up; for she saw that the wind had set violently in Francis Tredethlyn’s favour since Maude’s perusal of his letter. “I will insist upon an explanation from my husband; but before seeing him I will do what I should have done yesterday. I will go to that cottage at Petersham, and _see_ the lady who was sitting in the garden with Francis yesterday afternoon. It is my right as a wife to know my husband’s friends.” “You will see the--person,” exclaimed Julia, on the tips of her lips, as the French say. “I will.” “Well, perhaps, after all, it is not a bad plan,” answered Miss Desmond, after a pause. “And if you _do_ see that person, I dare say you will hear something unpleasant,” she thought: “it is only fair there should be some counterbalance to your grooms and ponies, even beyond Pickford’s vans, and the sharp corner in Dean Street, Park Lane.” “Julia, you will go with me?” asked Maude, putting down her Skye terrier. “No, Floss, not to-day. Oh, I wonder whether _you_ were ever married, and had this sort of thing to go through!--You’ll go to Petersham with me, won’t you, Julia dear?” “Of course I will,” answered Miss Desmond promptly; “it is a part of my _métier_. But how do you mean to go?” “Oh, we’ll drive.” “Your ponies?” asked Julia, spitefully. The “steppers” were a late acquisition. Maude’s childish cry of rapture at the sight of the Countess of Zarborough’s equipage had sent Francis off to Tattersall’s to bid for a pair of black ponies that Harcourt Lowther and his set had pronounced “clippers.” You see an ignorant man’s love is such a vulgar passion that it will express itself in this sordid way. “Oh, Julia,” cried Maude, “how _could_ you? As if I would drive those frivolous ponies with a frivolous parasol fastened to my whip, and those two listening grooms behind me, when my heart is almost broken by Frank’s conduct.” “Then you will go in the barouche?” “Yes, and I can leave the carriage some distance from the house,” Maude answered, with her hand upon the bell; “and we’ll go at once, Julia dear,--if you’re sure you’ve finished breakfast,” added Mrs. Tredethlyn, looking piteously at the cup of stagnant chocolate and unbroken roll, which bore witness to her own incapacity to eat or drink.