‘You don’t know what these actresses are, Willie,’ she said gravely, ‘nor what pleasure they take in making misery and estrangements between honest people. Nothing this woman would like better, I’m sure of it, than to come between you and me.’ ‘My dear Margaret, how can you say such things? If you had only seen her!’ ‘I don’t want to see her,’ interpolated Margaret quickly. ‘A person entirely devoted to her profession, in which she is justly held in the highest esteem.’ ‘I don’t deny that she is a good actress,’ returned Margaret significantly; ‘indeed I have no doubt of it.’ ‘And she spoke of you so kindly.’ ‘Of me? How dared she speak of me?’ cried Margaret with flashing eye. ‘What does she know of me?’ ‘Well, she saw you just for a moment when you looked in by accident yesterday, and she said how beautiful and kind you looked, and congratulated me——’ ‘It was shameful of you to tell those women of our engagement,’ she put in. ‘Why not? What was there to be ashamed of? Am I not proud of it? Why should I not have told them?’ His simplicity was very touching. If there had been such a thing as a male _ingénue_ upon the stage, the speaker would have been the very man to play it. ‘How they must have laughed at you in their sleeves, my poor Willie!’ she answered pityingly. He did not think it necessary to state that they _had_ laughed at him, and by no means in their sleeves. ‘I will never see them again if you don’t wish it,’ said William Henry, still sticking to the plural number. ‘Only I suppose when the “Vortigern“ comes to be acted it will be necessary to do so just for a night or two.’ ‘Oh, I don’t mind your seeing them at the play, Willie. We shall, of course, be there together.’ He had meant that his assistance would probably be required behind the scenes. Indeed Mrs. Jordan had taken it for granted that he would be a constant visitor at the theatre while the play was in preparation, and he had very willingly acquiesced in that arrangement, but he had not the courage to say so. He was only too thankful that Margaret’s suspicions were at last set at rest. He knew that she was of a jealous disposition, and also that she abhorred deceit, and he loved her none the less on either account, but there were reasons why her manifestation of such excessive displeasure on so small a matter alarmed him, and made his heart heavy within him. However, in a month or two they would be married. He would then be her very own, and she would have no misgivings about him; and as to deceit, there would be no further cause for it, and what was past and gone would surely be forgiven. But still his heart was heavy.