"You did tell me that you loved me then, Mrs. Hammond, and I did not believe you. You had told me the same thing before, you know, many a time, and you married Mr. Hammond. You married him because he was very rich,--perhaps you might have hesitated had he not also been old and silly; but he was, and your calculations have succeeded;--you are rich and free. Once before, when we talked upon this subject, I said we would not go into it any more. To you it cannot be _profitable_" (he laid an emphasis upon the word), "and to me it is very painful. 'That time is dead and buried,' and so let it be. I cannot conceive why you have revived its memory; but, whatever your purpose, it can have no success dependent on me. I have no bitter memory of it now; indeed, for some time I have had no memory of it at all. I know it is hard for a woman to believe that a wound inflicted by her can ever heal, and I daresay men show the scars sometimes, and flatter the harmless vanity of their _ci-devant_ conquerors. But I am not a man of that stamp, Mrs. Hammond; I have good healing flesh, I suppose, as the surgeons and the nurses say; at all events, I have no scars to show." He made a step in advance, as if to take his hat from a small table; and she saw that he intended to leave her. "No," she exclaimed; "you shall not go! I am utterly resolved to speak with you; and you must hear me. I will be as cold and as calm as you are; but you must hear me, if not for my sake or your own, for Lady Mitford's!" She motioned him to his seat, and smiled--a little momentary smile and full of bitterness. He sat down again, and she stood by the mantelpiece, on which she laid her hand, and for a moment rested her head upon the palm. Something forlorn in the attitude caught Alsager's attention; then he knew that she was acting, and acting well. Fury, perhaps ferocity, might be natural to Laura Hammond under certain circumstances; but forlornness never. When she next spoke it was in a softer tone, and she kept her face towards him in profile. It was her best look, as he remembered, and as she remembered also; for though she was not acting now in all she said--though she was more real throughout the whole of their interview than she had ever been before, nothing, except indeed it might have been severe bodily pain, could have reduced Laura to perfect reality. "I believe," she said, "the best way I can make you understand why I sent for you, and what I want to say to you, is to tell you the truth about those three years." "As you please," he answered; "I cannot conceive how their history can concern me, except that portion of it which I have witnessed; and that has concerned, and does concern me. But I am here at your request, and I will go only at your dismissal."