“Of course I remember your wedding!” said O’Hagan. “Bless my soul! you were a Miss Sheila Cavanagh! As a child you must have been at Dunnamore many a time! Why! we are quite old friends! You are not married three months, yet?” “Ten weeks,” replied Lady Dillon, pathetically. “And simply because your husband, Sir Brian, saw you walking in St. James’s Park with a gentleman——” “He has not spoken to me—for four days!”—brokenly. “And now he is waiting on the stage of the Novelty for a Miss Betty Chatterton, late of the Folly Theatre, whom formerly he admired——” “—He used to go about with her a lot, I know!” “And this gentleman with whom you were walking?” Lady Dillon looked away. “Ah,” said O’Hagan sadly, “you have been indiscreet. He was an old admirer?” (nod). “Persistent, unscrupulous?” (nod)—“and you were sending this fellow about his business?” She looked up to him as, of old, looked Menippus Lycius to Apollonius of Tyana; as to one omniscient—yet, crowning wonder, as to a favourite brother. Such is the timbre of my friend’s exquisite sympathy. Is it not a divine gift? “How can you possibly know that?” “My dear Lady Dillon—you have told me! Does your husband know this person?” “He knows _of_ him. But he has never even asked me his name. I thought he understood that I did not care and never had cared for the man. Oh! why did I see him? Why did I see him? But I feared that, unless I definitely dismissed him, he would compromise me!” “My poor child!” He patted her arm, soothingly. There are phases of his patronage which are healing. One absorbs his condescension gratefully, as a penitent receiving absolution from a holy cardinal. “You see, your marriage was a family arrangement, and your husband is uncertain of your affections. This regrettable incident has convinced him—wrongly—that from your point of view it is merely a _mariage de convenance_. His flirtation is a harmless one. He is, I dare swear, eating his heart out! But the pride of the Dillons has him by the throat. My dear little lady—leave him to me!” She looked up to him wonderingly again; but, with something of the touching confidence of a child, permitted him to conduct her Strandward. “Captain O’Hagan! I could never, never explain to him! That is why I dare not speak! He would _never_ forgive me for seeing him again—would never understand——” “Leave it entirely in my hands! _I_ will do the explaining! Simply accept my explanation, and decline in any way to enlarge upon it. You shall not be compromised, because I know you do not deserve it. Neither shall that hare-brained husband of yours compromise another girl out of mere _pique_.” She said nothing to that. In the Strand, opposite the Novelty: “That is your car yonder?” asked O’Hagan. “Oh! don’t let Priestman see me!” cried Lady Dillon. “I was afraid he would see me when I spoke to that wretch at the door!” “You are perfectly certain that your husband is in the theatre?”