"Well, if you want to know--" she said--"no, don't go--I don't mean to let you go just yet--I _am_ about the most miserable wretch going! There, you may take it or leave it; it's true. I don't suppose I cared much about George when I married him; plenty of girls don't. But as soon as he began to care about _you_,--just contrariness, I suppose,--I began to feel that I could kill anybody that took him from me, and kill myself afterwards! Oh, good gracious! there was plenty of reason for his getting tired of me. I'm not the sort of person to let anyone get the whip-hand of me, and I _would_ spend his money as I liked, and I _would_ ask the persons I chose to the house; and, above all, I wasn't going to be pestered with looking after and giving up to his _dreadful_ mother, who made my life a burden to me. Oh! why do you look so white? Well, I daresay it does sound atrocious. I don't care. Perhaps you'll be still more horrified when you know that they came round this afternoon, when I was out and George was gone, to tell me that Lady Tressady was frightfully ill--dying, I think my maid said. And I haven't given it another thought since--not one--till now"--she struck one hand against the other--"because directly afterwards the butler told me of your visit this afternoon, and that you were coming again--and I wasn't going to think of anything else in the world but you, and George. No, don't look like that, don't come near me--I'm not mad. I assure you I'm not mad! But that's all by the way. What was I saying? Oh! that George had cause enough to stop caring about me. Of course he had; but if he's lost to me--I shall give him a good deal more cause before we've done. That other man--you know him--Cathedine--gave me a kiss this afternoon, when we were in a wood together"--the same involuntary shudder overtook her, while she still held her companion at arm's length. "Oh, he is a brute--a _brute_! But what do I care what happens to me? It's so strange I don't--rather creditable, I think--for after all I like parties, and being asked about. But now George hates me--and let you send him away from me--why, of course, it's all simple enough! I--Don't--don't come. I shall never, never forgive--it's just being tired--"