Her woman’s heart was touched by his haggard wan face. He looked as if he had not slept for nights, and although his “get-up” was as studiously correct as ever, there was a careless, reckless air about him that half frightened her. He looked like a man on the brink of a brain fever. “Nothing for me, thank you. If I were to swallow a morsel it would choke me just now. I need not assure you, Mark and Helen, that the certificate is a most wicked forgery. I never heard of, much less married, Fanny Cole, nor anyone but Alice Saville. I must unwittingly have made some bitter enemy to bring down on myself such diabolical vengeance, uprooting my home and estranging my wife.” “Alice believes it then?” they cried in one breath. “Yes, so she has told me. She declares she is no longer my wife, and will never see me again. She means to leave Looton and live in remote retirement with Miss Fane, where, reversing the Elizabethan valediction, she will do her best to forgive and forget me.” “Reginald!” said Helen with wide-open eyes, “you are joking.” “Do you think this a subject for jests?” he said sternly. “Did you not reason with her?” asked his cousin vehemently. “I did; I assured her of my innocence, on my word of honour. I reasoned with her as temperately as I could, till she nearly goaded me to madness. I could not trust myself to tell you what she said; but she concluded the interview by flinging me her wedding-ring. Here it is,” said he, taking it out of his waistcoat-pocket and laying it on the table between them. At this tangible proof of the rupture they both stared in silent consternation. Presently Helen said: “I need not tell you, Regy, how young and inexperienced she is--not yet eighteen. Make allowances for her, for she naturally received a great shock, and has been ill-advised by Miss Fane, whom, you know, I never could bear. Do not be hasty in taking Alice at her word; you know she is very fond of you.” “If you had been present last night you would scarcely have said so,” returned Sir Reginald dryly; “but I have written to her this morning to say that, if she changes her mind, a line to the Club will find me for a week. She may have been carried away in the heat of passion to say more than she thought or meant. After a week it will be too late; I shall accept the liberty she offers me, and return to my profession. Fortunately my papers have not gone in yet. Now I must be going. You shall see me this day week.” “Nonsense, man, you are coming to stay here.” “No, Mark; many thanks to you. You would find me a restless, unbearable inmate. In a week’s time I shall have settled down and grown more accustomed to my fate--if fate it is to be. Meanwhile, I shall spare neither time nor money to find out the author of this certificate, scoundrel that he is!” “Reginald, I am sure a man never sent it,” said Helen. “I’m sorry to say it of my own sex, but it’s safe to be a woman.”