“But I anticipate a great deal from an unexpected meeting, nevertheless. I’ll get Alice over from Sandown to spend a few days, and ‘you shall see what you shall see.’ You know that she and Miss Fane are there, and have taken a house till April.” “Please yourself and you please me; but I have a conviction that your little plot will be no go. Reginald’s temper is like what the Irish cook said of your own: ‘That you were a good Christian lady, but when you were riz, you _was_ riz;’ and he is very much _riz_ indeed.” “Well, I can’t wonder at it, I must say. You would have been, to say the least of it, _annoyed_ if I had, after being married to you a few months, called you a hypocrite and deceiver, and left you, after throwing you my wedding-ring; you knowing yourself to be entirely innocent of any blame all the time.” “Yes, very true; but no such volcano as this certificate ever burst out in your home. Pray what would you have done, or say you would have done, in such a case?” “I would have trusted you, Mark.” “Humph.” What an extraordinary amount of unbelief a grunt can convey. “Ah well, perhaps you would. Such trust is, however, much easier in theory than in practice. Make some allowance for Alice, poor girl, although we all know she is in the wrong. It’s a bad business--a bad business.” So saying, he opened his paper with an impressive rustle and buried himself in the news of the day. * * * * * A fortnight had passed. The Mayhews were domiciled at Southsea, and Alice had come over to stay with them for a few days after an immense amount of coaxing, and finally being “fetched.” She was as deaf as an adder to all Helen’s eloquent reasoning and remonstrances, and even Mark was out of patience with her at last. She had been primed by Miss Fane with answers to every argument, and had given her her most solemn promise never to yield an inch until the certificate was thoroughly disproved. There had been a letter from her husband to Helen, saying he was coming down on Monday to bid “Good-bye,” as he was to sail the following Thursday; and he mentioned that he wished to have an interview with his wife, so that her being on a visit at the Mayhews’ was most convenient. She was not told of his probable arrival, in case it should scare her away. She knew that he was shortly going to India, but where he was, or when he was going, she had no means of knowing, and was too proud to ask, and Helen was far too angry with her to offer any gratuitous information. On Monday afternoon Helen and Alice were sitting in the drawing-room, the latter pouring out tea at a low gipsy table, and looking very fair, girlish, and lovely in a thick black damassé silk of most artistic cut, with lace ruffles at her throat and wrists. Helen, lounging opposite in a capacious armchair, was reading aloud tid-bits from _The World_, and occasionally glancing towards the door.