"I like your candour. It is reassuring. I may be mistaken. I devoutly pray that I am. You have, I am told, had great experience in such painful domestic affairs as that I now trouble you with. It is already a source of much comfort to me that I have consulted you. If you can remove the horrid doubts which oppress me, I shall esteem you my benefactor; but let me know the truth, whatever that may be." I again begged him to be a little more precise than he had been in detailing the cause of his suspicions. "In solemn confidence, I may say that we were at a dinner-party at the house of Mr. Tallboyes, in Seymour Place, the week before last, and it was impossible to avoid noticing her freedom with young Lord Swellington and Colonel Foreshore." "The colonel!" I said; "he is a man of sixty. He has seen much hard service; and is 'a lion' in every party just now, I have heard. Were not your wife's attentions the mere courtesies which all true women find pleasure in bestowing upon age and bravery?" "That might be; but what do you say about her pleasantries with that conceited and empty-headed young fop, Lord Swellington?" "These might be the innocent raillery and badinage of the purest woman. Ladies sometimes take a cruel pleasure in trifling with, just to mortify, the fop, in whatever grade of society he may be found." "I sincerely hope you are right; but, unhappily, these have not been the only causes of my grief. My wife is too fond of pleasure. We have lately been at two public breakfasts,--one given by Lady W----, at Kew; and another by the Marchioness of L----, at Chiswick." "That--pardon my suggesting, under the most adverse, and at the same time rational, estimate of human character--betrays only something of levity, quite consistent with purity of heart and the strictest rectitude of conduct." "You are not, I am glad to say, an uncharitable interpreter of human conduct." "Indeed I hope not; for although I have seen much wickedness, and a vast deal of subtle, as well as patent, crime, I have met with many instances in which unjust suspicions have provoked calamities. But was there any thing, and if so what was there, in the conduct of your wife to justify your suspicions about her?" "Well, she flirted with every gentleman present at each party, young and old." "With every one?" "Yes, or nearly so." "This is enough to show the groundlessness of your apprehensions. Mrs. Percival may have been too richly endowed with vivacity, but _my_ suspicion is that her freedom arises, in great part, from her conscious guilelessness and her moral self-possession." "Again I say I _hope_ you may be right, and I wrong." "Why so emphasise that word _hope_? Have you observed any other instances of what you deem your wife's impropriety?" "Yes," he replied, with a sigh. "Relate them." "The other day my wife induced me to take her to the flower-show held in the gardens of the Botanic Society, Regent's Park." "She asked you to take her?" I interposed.