“Hush, Aunt,” Mrs. Elles interrupted again--this time really for the sake of the servants and common decency. And then there was nothing fine, dramatic or romantic about this discussion; it sickened her. Not so should a husband accuse his wife of infidelity: through the mouth of a vulgar, foul-mouthed beldam. How different from Hero’s “Let me but know of what man I am accused”! Still it behooved her to listen and learn, if she could, from Aunt Poynder the precise terms of the indictment against her. “And I saw you in his arms,” continued the old lady, “and the girl Jane Anne saw you walking hand in hand out in the public street! Don’t attempt to deny it!” In point of fact Mrs. Elles said nothing, but Mrs. Poynder thought she did, and her fury rose. “You have the face----! Well, it’s more than your man has. He turned as white as a leaf when I was giving him a piece of my mind this morning. He’d nothing to say for himself except that your room was the common room.” “So it was!” “Tell that to me! I know what’s what. It’s I that made him promise to marry you, when all’s said and done. But, Lord!--trust him! He’ll not touch you with a pair of tongs! Men aren’t so fond of marrying the women they have disgraced. Mercy, what’s that?” she added in extreme perturbation. “Only the dinner gong, Aunt,” said Mrs. Elles, spitefully smiling on the other side of the door. She had learned what she wanted. “I can’t come down,” she said decidedly. “Tell Mortimer to come up here and speak to me after he has dined.” “You give your orders, my lady!” grumbled the older woman. “What’s to say that Mortimer’s going to condescend to even speak to you?” “Give him my message,” said Mrs. Elles peremptorily. Mrs. Poynder’s footsteps creaked on the stairs as she withdrew, and her angry mutterings were like a heavy ground swell at sea as she went downstairs. How her niece loathed her! And the man whose comfort and well-being she placed before every other earthly consideration had been exposed for at least half an hour to that malign influence. She realized the full horrors of the scene at the Heather Bell which her aunt had only faintly adumbrated, and most of her thought was for him. “I must get him out of this,” she said to herself, “at all costs! I used to think myself clever--I shall be clever if I manage this. I don’t care a pin for myself, but for him! If I only knew something about it all--how they set about these things. What can be done? What is possible? If only I could look it up somewhere.” A vain glance at the little bookcase stocked with Ibsens and Merediths did not help her. “What is the good of you?” she said, apostrophising them violently. “You are no good when it comes to the serious crises of life. Even a common old ‘Enquire Within’ would be better. I don’t know what it is I am in for--what it all means. Can Mortimer divorce me straight away? What is the formula?” She wrung her hands. “If only I could keep his name out of it?”