Upon this La Chicot would dissolve in maudlin tears. It was a pitiful sight, and wrung the student’s heart. He could have loved her so well, would have tried so hard to save her, had it been possible. He did not know how heartless a piece of beautiful clay she was. He put down her errors to her husband’s neglect. ‘If she had been my wife, she might have been a very different woman,’ he said to himself, not believing the innate depravity of anything so absolutely beautiful as La Chicot. He forgot how fair some poisonous weeds are, how beautiful the scarlet berries of the nightshade look when they star the brown autumn hedges. So La Chicot went her way triumphantly. There was no danger to life or limb for her in the new piece--no perilous ascent to the sky borders. She drank as much brandy as she liked, and, so long as she contrived to appear sober before the audience, Mr. Smolendo said nothing. ‘I’m afraid she’ll drink herself into a dropsy, poor thing,’ he said compassionately one day to a friend at the Garrick Club. ‘But I hope she’ll last my time. A woman of her type could hardly be expected to draw for more than three seasons, and La Chicot ought to hold out for another year or so.’ ‘After that, the hospital,’ said his friend. Mr. Smolendo shrugged his shoulders. ‘I never trouble myself about the after-career of my artists,’ he answered pleasantly. CHAPTER XV. EDWARD CLARE DISCOVERS A LIKENESS. ‘Hazlehurst Rectory, February 22nd.--Dear Ned,--Do you remember my saying, when Laura refused to have a proper wedding-gown, that her marriage was altogether an ill-omened business? I told her so, I told you so; in fact, I think I told everybody so; if it be not an unpardonable exaggeration to call the handful of wretched dowdies and frumps in such a place as Hazlehurst everybody. Well, I was right. The marriage has been a complete _fiasco_. What do you think of our poor Laura’s coming home from her honeymoon _alone_? Without even so much as her husband’s portmanteau! She has shut herself up in the Manor-house, where she lives the life of a female anchorite, and is so reserved in her manner towards me, her oldest friend, her all but sister, that even I do not know the cause of this extraordinary state of affairs. ‘“My dear Celia, don’t ask me anything about it,” she said, when we had kissed each other, and cried a little, and I had looked at her collar and cuffs to see if she had brought a new style from Paris. ‘“My dearest, I must ask you,” I replied; “I don’t pretend to be more than human, and I am burning with curiosity and suppressed indignation. What does it all mean? Why have you challenged public opinion by coming home alone? Have you and Mr. Treverton quarrelled?” ‘“No,” she said, decisively; “and that is the last question about my married life that I shall ever answer, Celia, so you need not ask me any more.” ‘“Where did you part with him?” I asked, determined not to give way. My unhappy friend was obstinately silent.