'As the day wore on, she induced him to discuss the Trans-Euphratic Railway scheme, in which he is greatly interested. He will be a long while recovering.' Repressing her inclination to seize an obvious opening for a flippant question, Lady Blixworth gazed sympathetically at the afflicted father. 'And your poor wife?' she asked in gentle tones. 'A collapse--nothing less than a collapse, Viola. The deception that Mrs. Trevalla practised--well, I won't say a word. I had come to like her, and it is too painful--too painful. But there is no doubt that she wilfully deceived us on at least two occasions. The first we forgave freely and frankly; we treated it as if it had never been. The second time was on that evening itself; she misrepresented the result of certain business matters in which she had engaged----' 'And ran away to avoid being found out?' guessed Lady Blixworth. 'I think--I may say, I hope--that she was for the time not responsible for her actions.' 'Where is she now?' 'I have no information. We don't desire to know. We have done with her.' 'Does Mortimer feel like that too?' 'Don't do him the injustice--the injustice, Viola--of supposing anything else. He knows what is due to himself. Fortunately the acute position of public affairs is a distraction.' 'Do tell him to come here. We shall be so glad to see him, Audrey and I. She admires him so much, you know; and I--well, I've known him since he was a boy. Does Sarah know nothing more about Trix's reasons for behaving in such a fashion?' 'In Sarah's opinion Mrs. Trevalla has ruined herself by speculation.' Lady Blixworth was startled from artifice by the rapture of finding her suspicions justified. 'Fricker!' she exclaimed triumphantly. 'There is every reason to believe so--every reason.' There was at least one very good one--namely, that Mrs. Bonfill had pieced together Mr. Fricker's letter, read it, and communicated the contents to Lady Barmouth. Lord Barmouth saw no need to be explicit on this point; he had refused to read the letter himself, or to let Mrs. Bonfill speak to him about it. It is, however, difficult for a man not to listen to his wife. 'Well, you never were enthusiastic about the match, were you?' 'She wasn't quite one of us, but I had come to like her.' He paused, and then, after a struggle, broke out candidly, 'I feel sorry for her, Viola.' 'It does you credit,' said Lady Blixworth, and she really thought it did. 'In a sense she is to be pitied. It is inevitable that a man like Mortimer should require much from the woman who is to be his wife. It is inevitable. She couldn't reach his standard.' 'Nor yours.' 'Our standard for him is very high, very high.' He sighed. 'But I'm sorry for her.' 'What does Sarah say?' Lord Barmouth looked a little puzzled. He leant forward and observed confidentially, 'It seems to me, Viola, that women of high principle occasionally develop a certain severity of judgment--I call it a severity.'