"Shall I never make you understand me?" she said passionately; "will you persist in bringing things that are unreasonable to the touchstone of reason? I don't know, I don't care how absurd what I am saying may sound; it is true, true, Laurence Alsager,--as sure as death is true, or any love that ever was more bitter. Yes, it is true: now think your worst, and say your worst of me; still you must see that I am far more wretched than she is. What had I to endure? What had she? I won her husband from her. If I did, was he a prize, do you think? A selfish, sensual, brainless fool; a man without taste, or manners, or mind; a man who is a living contradiction to the theories of rage and education; a man of whom she must have sickened in a year, if she had ever gained sense enough to find him out. She is not very clever, you know, and she might have taken longer for the discovery, if the habitual society of men who are gentlemen had not enlightened her. But she had a more sure and rapid teacher, who brought her consolation too." There was a world of malevolent meaning in the tone in which she said this. "What do you, what _can_ you mean?" he asked. "Ah, you are getting interested now, Sir Laurence, when my discourse turns on _her_. Wait a little, and I will explain. I asked you what did she lose; I need not ask you what did I gain; the one includes the other." "He was her husband," said Laurence. "Her husband!" repeated Laura, with intense scorn. "You have caught the cant of the proprieties' school, have you? Her husband! And what were you? My lover, Laurence. Ay, you may forget, you may deny it; but you were, the day you landed in England,--I should have only needed opportunity to win you back again. Her husband!" (with a bold hard laugh)--"she might have taken mine, and welcome!" Sir Laurence looked at her in growing disgust. Lord Dollamore was quite right; there was a strong dash of vulgarity about Laura Hammond, and it appeared whenever she lost her temper.