“What do you mean by ill-managed? Surely _you_ can have no reason to think this world an unhappy one! If there exists one person in it who ought to be happy, it is you--you and your wife,” she added, with a little sigh which again misled her companion into a blind and senseless belief in his own power over her affections. “You have everything, it seems to me, that human beings can hope for or desire--youth and health and riches, living where you like, and always seeing and enjoying the beautiful things that money can buy; and then going abroad, seeing foreign countries, and--and--” “And what? Tell me some more of my privileges, my delights; make me contented, if you can, with my lot. At present it seems dark enough, God knows; and if--but I am a fool, and worse, to talk to you of these things; only, if I thought that you--you, who are an angel of purity and love and peace--would sometimes think of me with pity, why, it would give me courage, Honor, would make me feel that I have still something to live for, something to bind me to an existence which I have begun to loathe!” Honor listened to this outpouring of real or fancied sorrows like one who is not sure whether she dreams or is awake. “Mr. Vavasour!” she exclaimed, “what _can_ you mean? At your age, with a young wife who loves you, and with” (blushing slightly) “the hope of the dear little child that will so soon be born, it seems so wonderful to hear you talk in this way! What is it?” warming with pity as she watched the young worn face prematurely marked with lines of care--“would you like to tell me?--I am very _safe_. I have no one” (sadly) “to confide in; and you have just said that my sympathy would be a comfort to you.” She laid her little ungloved hand--she had taken off her gauntlet to caress the arched neck of the pretty thoroughbred _screw_ she rode--upon her companion’s arm as she spoke, and so fully occupied was she with her object (namely, that of inducing Arthur to trust her with his sorrows), that she was scarcely conscious of the warmth with which he, pressing his hand upon the caressing fingers, mutely accepted the tribute of her sympathy. “Ah, then,” she said--the slight _soupçon_ of a brogue, as was often the case when she was eager or excited, making itself apparent--“ah, then, you will remember I am your friend, and say what it is that lies so heavy on your heart?” For a moment he looked at her doubtingly; and then, as though the words broke from him as in his own despite, he said in a low husky tone: “What purpose would it answer, what good would it effect either for you or me, were you to learn that I am a villain?” CHAPTER VII. MEA CULPA.