When the poor lady was impelled to shuffle off her coil, the completeness of the desolation revealed due to her husband's fault, came home to him with a mighty twinge; and he felt angry with her in that she should be capable of inflicting so severe a nip. The estrangement was not his fault, he argued with conscience. It was his misfortune and hers, which it was in the province of neither to remedy. Of course, it was all a pity; but are there not numberless things in this life that are "a pity," but which we are powerless to alter? The brief period of _tête-à-tête_ when they first came to live at Lorge had been ghastly dull, and he, like a sensible man, had sought refuge from it in his books. Then merciful Providence had sent a set of people to make his situation more bearable--his and hers also. Why could she not let herself drift in calm content, as he had done? It always came back to that, and every time he was the more convinced of it. His wife was an unreasonable creature, who persisted in pining for what she could not get instead of making the best of what she had. Perhaps he had not behaved quite nicely in the matter of the prodigies. Yet after all, was it not essential that they should receive trained instruction, and had they not of their own accord turned from their mother to the governess? He had never said, "My dears, you must care no longer for mamma, and adore your governess." Was it not evident that mamma wearied them as much as she did him, while their instructress was the most delightful comrade that ever breathed, as well as abnormally clever? With this course of argument conscience was convinced, or pretended to be, and curled itself up and slept, and would have continued thus in charmed repose, but for this new disturbance. There can be no denying that there must be something radically wrong, when a woman who used to be serene leaps with felonious intent out of a wherry. Though everyone was told that the affair was an accident, nobody believed it. The marquis was ashamed and dreaded a scandal.