“‘Oh, Lord Wraysbury, I am in the greatest trouble,’ she said in a distressed voice. ‘Come up to the drawing-room for just a few minutes, so that I can tell you about it. There is no danger. My husband is in the country and won’t be back for a week. I have sent the servants out to the theatre, so that we might be alone. That is why I couldn’t ask you to dinner.’” Wraysbury did not quite like the look of things, the absence of both husband and servants, but he was still unsuspicious. The woman played her part so well that he attributed her rather foolish act to her acute distress of mind. He was quite sure it was connected with her husband, and that his suspicions of the unhappiness of their married life were going to be confirmed by her revelations. He went up to the drawing-room with her, resolving to get out of the embarrassing situation as soon as he could, and she at once burst forth into an impassioned account of her wrongs and sufferings. According to her account, Edwards, so genial and gentlemanly in public life, was a bully and a brute. On many occasions she had suffered personal violence at his hands. She rolled up her sleeve and showed a shapely arm on which appeared a big bruise which had been inflicted a couple of days ago. She had no positive evidence of infidelity, but she had grave suspicions of his relations with other women. On Wraysbury remarking that it was very early in their married life for such a thing to occur, she made a confession. “I must tell you a little secret. We have been married for some time; it was kept quiet for certain reasons of his own. The truth is, Lord Wraysbury, he is tired of me. I feel I can stand it no longer. I have made up my mind to leave him. I’m sure you can’t blame me.” This was evidently the subject on which she had wanted his advice, and still unsuspicious, the young man answered her question. “But after all, Mrs. Edwards, I am not the person to whom you should come for advice,” he had told her. “You are not without friends, who would not feel the responsibility as I should. There is your mother, your uncle, this man Stormont, who has the same regard for you that he would have for his own niece. Have you spoken to them, or if you have not, would it not be wise to do so, before taking such a serious step?” She had answered him with a profusion of tears that her mother was a woman of weak character, who would make any sacrifice for the sake of peace. She would advise her to bear her burden with as much fortitude as she could. Both Glenthorne and Stormont would oppose her. They were very worldly men; they would point out to her the folly of forfeiting the advantages which her position as the wife of a rich man gave her; they would remind her of the equivocal status of an unattached woman who was neither maid, wife nor widow.