‘No, sir, sorra a word, barrin’ that she was very unhappy until yer honour sint her here.’ ‘Till I sent her here! What on earth do you mean?’ says Wyndham indignantly. ‘You must know very well that it was that blundering idiot of a husband of yours that brought her here.’ ‘Fegs, ’tis plain that ye know Denis, any way,’ says Denis’s wife complacently. ‘Idjit is the word for him, sure enough! But however it is, sir, the poor young lady is very continted here entirely, an’’—waxing enthusiastic—‘’twould do your heart good to hear her singin’ about the garden, for all the world like wan o’ thim nate little thrushes.’ This expectation on Mrs. Denis’s part, that he will find delight in the thought of the unwelcome stranger making herself at home in his garden and singing there like a ‘nate little thrush,’ naturally adds fuel to the fire that already is burning vigorously in Wyndham’s breast. ‘Look here,’ says he, so fiercely that Mrs. Denis starts backwards, ‘you’ve taken a wrong impression of me altogether, if you think I shall for one moment sanction the presence of that girl here. Your husband has got me into this mess with his confounded stupidity, but I can trust myself to get out of it—and I expect you to understand at once that your “thrush”’—scornfully—‘will be out of this within twenty-four hours.’ With this he brushes by her, his temper—never very sweet—now considerably the worse for wear. Nice situation, by Jove! If it comes to the old man’s ears there will be the devil to pay; and it’s sure to. He had felt there was something queer in his aunt’s and Josephine’s manner yesterday when he called at their house in Fitzwilliam Square. Why, if it gets about, there isn’t one in forty amongst his acquaintances who will believe in the real facts of the case.... It is a most confounded affair altogether. If he hadn’t gone abroad, trusting—like the fool that he was—in Denis’s ability to get her out of the Cottage at once, he could have done it himself, and so speedily that no one would ever have been the wiser about it. But now it has gone a little too far; people, no doubt, are beginning to talk. Well, it shall go no farther. He will put an end to it at once—this moment. CHAPTER X. ‘My heart is sad and heavy, In this merry month of May, As I stand beneath the lime-tree On the bastion old and gray.’