She drew her shawl closely round her as if she shivered again, and spoke the next words with a jerk, for to get them out required an effort of pain. What it had taken to nerve her to this task so far, she alone knew. "What is there between you and Lady Ellis?" "Between me and Lady Ellis!" echoed Mr. Lake, with all the carelessness in life. "Nothing at all. What should there be?" She bent towards him and whispered. "Which is it--which is it _to be_, I or she?" "To be--for what?" rejoined Mr. Lake, really at a loss. "Which of us is it that you love?" she wailed forth; and indeed the tone of her voice could be called little else than a wail. "Clara, you are growing foolish." "Don't put me off in this false way," she vehemently uttered, roused to passion by his indifference. "Why are you always with her, stealing walks and interviews?--why do you give to her your impassioned kisses, and call her by endearing names? Robert, you will kill me!" He put the heel of his boot on the bars to push down a piece of refractory coal, probably debating with himself what he should answer. "Considering that you are my wife, Clara, and that Lady Ellis is but a chance acquaintance, I think you might be above this nonsense." "Have you forgotten my dream?" she resumed, in a low tone. "Have you forgotten that my coming to this house seemed to shadow forth my death?" "That dream again, of all things!" exclaimed Mr. Lake in open surprise, involuntary sarcasm in his tone. "I thought it was done with and dismissed." "I have been thinking of it all the evening." "Then I'd not confess it," he said, dropping either by accident or in temper the hair-brush he had taken in his hand "And the notion of my kissing Lady Ellis! and calling her--what did you phrase it?--endearing names? That's the best joke I have heard lately." She fixed her gaze steadfastly upon him; there was something in it which seemed to say she could convict him of falsehood, if she chose; and his eyes fell beneath hers. "What has come over you, Clary? You must be turning jealous! I never knew you so foolish before." "No," she answered, in a tone of pain, "never before, never before." "And why now? There's no occasion for it." "I will not descend to explanation or reproach," she said, after a pause; "you may ask your own conscience how much of the latter you merit. I shall go home tomorrow; I dare not stay in this house with that woman. Do you understand me, I _dare not_. You can accompany me if--if---- Robert, you must choose between us." He did not speak for a minute or two; and when he did, it was in a careless tone, as though he wished to make light of the matter altogether. "Of course if you have made up your mind to return to an uncomfortable home, half pulled down, we must do so. I am sorry for the caprice, for we shall be choked with paint and dust." "Very well. We go tomorrow. I will send Elizabeth over early in the morning, to get things straight for us."