Lady Jean feels very bitter against the dead man, and very bitter against everything in general. She has had but few condolences, and those have been spiced with feminine malice. She is quite alone in her hotel in the Rue Scribe, and her lawyer has worried her into a headache this morning with explanations and formalities. While she is in this unamiable mood the door opens, and Sir Francis Vavasour enters. Lady Jean blushes scarlet as she rises to greet him. To do her justice the emotion is genuine enough. She has thought herself forsaken--forgotten. "You--how good of you!" she says, and holds out both her hands. He takes them and draws her towards him, and kisses her many times. She does not rebuke him; the days for pretence have long been over between them. "And so you are--free?" he says. "And penniless and--disgraced, you should add," she answers, sinking down on the couch by his side. "This horrible scandal will kill me, I think." This is all her regret for the dead man she has deceived, goaded, embarrassed by her extravagances, and wantonly neglected and ridiculed through all her married life. "Oh, no, it won't," says Sir Francis consolingly. "Scandal never killed any one yet, especially a woman. But are things very bad?" Lady Jean explains as well as she can the lawyer's wearisome phrases, and her own definition of ruin. "And what will you do?" asks Sir Francis. "I have scarcely thought about it yet. I can't live at Norristown, it would be absurd. I must let it. Oh, Frank, isn't it hard? Fancy a life like this for--me!" "It is a trial, certainly," he says, pulling his thick moustache with an abstracted air. "I don't know what the deuce you're to do, unless you let me help you." She laughs contemptuously. "No, thank you. We'll stop short of money favours. I haven't come to that yet." "But what can you do?" persisted Sir Francis. "Five hundred pounds a year! Why, it wouldn't keep you in gowns for three months--and do you expect to eat, drink, pay rent, and clothe yourself, on such a beggar's pittance?" "Oh, I shall get into debt for a year, of course," says Lady Jean coolly, "and then--marry--I suppose." He turns very white. "You say that to--me?" "My dear Frank, why not? You are a man of the world; you don't suppose I am going to stagnate in poverty and obscurity till some happy chance gives you the freedom I possess. Not I--pshaw! it is absurd. I must do the best for myself. You are not surely so selfish as to expect me to throw away a good chance for--you." "I thought you loved me," he says gloomily; "you told me so."