"Yes," she went on, more and more angrily; "think of her, and think of me. She suffered the tortures of jealousy, did she? of lawful legitimate jealousy, for which good people would give her pity, if she were not too proud to take it. She suffer! What did I suffer? I tell you, Laurence Alsager, she _could not_ suffer what I suffer; it is not in her, any more than she could love as I love. She is a handsome, cold, egotistical woman, who thinks of her _rights_. Her husband belonged to her, and I took him, and she didn't like it. She felt it much as she would have felt my stealing her pearls or her Dresden china, I daresay; but _suffer!_ Why, she's what is called a _good_ woman; and if I chose to break with Mitford, he would probably now return to her, for he likes her rather; and she would receive his apologies, and all would be right again. Yes, she'd stoop to this stupid meanness, because he's her _husband_, you know; and matrimony is such a remarkably sacred institution, that a man may do anything he pleases. And you talk to me of a woman like _her_ suffering!" Sir Laurence made no answer. He was thinking how truly, from her own debased point of view, Laura Hammond read the character of the woman she had injured so deeply. "You don't answer. Tell me, don't you know she would be reconciled with Mitford to-morrow, if he asked her?" "I cannot tell you, indeed," he said coldly; "you had better 'break with Mitford,' as you phrase it, and find out." "Will you not at least acknowledge that I had to suffer? The time of my bondage was short, but she deprived my freedom of all its value. She has won you, Laurence; and what is it all to me? I don't believe, in all her well-regulated life, she ever experienced such a pang as I felt when I saw her indifferent to Mitford's brutal neglect, and to my insolence, one morning, because she had just had a letter from you; a commonplace letter enough, Sir Laurence--she told us all about it--but I can never forget or forgive the serenity of her face; it seemed as if she had been removed into a world apart from us all." How little she dreamed--how far, in her blind furious anger and self-abandonment, she was from dreaming of the secret stealthy delight with which the listener heard her words! "You impute to Lady Mitford your own ideas, your own indifference to right, Mrs. Hammond; she is a woman who is incapable of wronging her husband, even in thought, though that husband be no worthier than Mitford. She rules her life by principles, and in her estimate of marriage regards the obligation rather than the individual." "Indeed! That's a very pretty sentence, Sir Laurence, and you have learned your lesson like a very docile little boy. But hadn't you better reserve it for repetition elsewhere? for really sentiments of such grandeur are quite thrown away on me."