“My child,” she began, “I have been talking to the dreadful man downstairs that ill-fortune has given you for a husband. He is--well, I won’t say any more, but this--that I wish I could take you away with me, and let you make a home with me--you and the baby!” “How I wish you could!” said Letty, pushing back her hair as she spoke. “But there is no use in wishing. I often wish I was dead--and it’s no good.” “Well, remember, my dear, if ever you are at the end of your tether, you must come to me.” Letty gave her a glance of despair, then she rose and said: “I shall have to go down at once, for Hugo always expects me to be in the drawing-room when he is there--he likes me to sing the new musical comedies. He says my voice sends him to sleep.” “My dear, if I were you, for once I would disappoint your Saul! _I_ do not intend to go downstairs again to-night, and I shall leave you immediately after breakfast to-morrow. Mr. Blagdon was outrageously rude to you at dinner--apparently he imagined that he can make you miserable with impunity, that you will ignore his insults, and entertain him in the drawing-room all smiles and songs. Believe me, you are making a fatal mistake; possibly if you had resisted in the first instance, things would never have come to such a pass. You are not his wife, but his doormat!” Again Mrs. Hesketh had sown a little seed. Letty for once did resist, and the two friends remained together talking until bed-time. Blagdon, finding the drawing-room empty, glared round it, then stalked into the smoking-room, where he smoked cigars and drank whiskies and sodas in solitary state, and a condition of volcanic indignation. “Of course, the old woman was at the bottom of Letty’s sulks--a damned meddlesome hag!” He rang the bell and said to the footman: “Tell Mrs. Hesketh’s maid to let her mistress know, that her carriage is ordered to take her home at nine o’clock to-morrow morning.” CHAPTER XVIII