“What do you mean by bringing me here to ridicule and insult me?” repeated Alice in a towering rage. “The marriage certificate is still unexplained, and you talk to me as if _you_ were the injured person--_you_!” “I am glad to see that you have grasped my meaning,” he replied coolly. “I _am_ the injured person; suspected by you, who should be the last to doubt me--homeless, wifeless, nevertheless innocent. I am leaving my native land, this time a voluntary exile. You have destroyed my faith in womankind: a woman’s word--a woman’s love--a woman’s generosity are to me now merely so many names for delusions believed in by children and _fools_. I brought you here to tell you of various arrangements I had made. I preferred a personal interview to letter-writing; besides which, I am sure you will be amused to hear that I had a lingering hope you would have believed me and trusted me, even at the eleventh hour--a hope I now see,” looking at her steadily, “that I was mad to entertain.” “You were indeed insane to think it,” exclaimed Alice very emphatically. “Prove the certificate to be a forgery, and then I will believe you,” she said abruptly, turning to leave the pier, with a scarlet flush on either cheek and a general air of outraged dignity. They walked homewards, that cold, dusky February evening, in solemn silence. Alice’s conscience was clamouring loudly as she stepped briskly along, endeavouring to keep up with her husband’s rapid strides. He seemed totally unconscious of her presence. Buried deep in his own thoughts, he did not vouchsafe a single remark between the pier and the Mayhews’ house. “God forgive you if you have wronged him,” said Alice’s inward monitor. “He is going away to the other end of the world, and you may never see him again.” “But the certificate--the clergyman’s signature so far undenied and unrefuted,” argued Pride and Propriety. Helen, who had been expecting great things from this interview, met her cousins in the hall on their return. One glance at Alice was sufficient to dash her hopes to the ground--she looked the very picture of frigid resolution as she placed her umbrella in the stand, and with some trivial remark about the lateness of the hour walked straight upstairs to her own room, where she remained all the evening, pleading a bad headache as an excuse from dinner. Nor was her husband a more hopeful subject; declining all his cousin’s entreaties and persuasions to remain, at any rate, till the last train, he took his departure forthwith, Helen promising him, as she followed him to the door, that they would _all_ come and see him off the following Thursday. Her inquiries and hints were in vain; no particulars of the walk to the pier were vouchsafed to satisfy the cravings of her curiosity. “We are just where we were before we ever met--we are strangers,” was the only intelligence gleaned from her cousin as he selected a cigar, buttoned up his top-coat, and bade her good-night.