"One can never judge of another's case by one's own," answers Lady Etwynde. "No doubt you were tried, hurried into it. I know, oh! I know. You are not the first girl who has told me the same, nor will you be the last. The mothers of Society do it all for the best, doubtless. Love seems such a poor, contemptible thing in their eyes in comparison with--settlements. Oh, yes! that is so always. Perhaps they forget their own youth; one does, they say, when one outlives romance. And I suppose an 'Establishment' is better than poetry any day. They are wise, after all. Year after year the season has its martyrs. Girls are brought out and introduced with no higher aim or object set before them than a 'great marriage.' Fashion and Society expect it. I suppose it is what they were born for! Thank God! my parents were neither ambitious nor mercenary. Perhaps I too might have been over-persuaded. I don't think it likely. Still---" She hesitates and looks compassionately at Lauraine's sad face. "You must try and be brave, dear, and bear your life as it is. Regrets, repining, sorrowing won't make it any better. You say you are weak, but I don't think you are so weak as all that. And there is one thing I have wanted to say to you of late. You will pardon me if it seems intrusive. But, do you know you are behaving very coldly, and, I think, unwisely, towards your husband? You leave him alone, to other temptations that your presence would restrain. All these months you have not seen him, you scarcely even write with more warmth or interest than you do to your steward; and, after all, he is your husband. Nothing can alter that; and he loved you very dearly, and no doubt he does still. Can you not see that your duty to him demands even more than the sacrifice you have already made? I know it is hard, terribly hard. You say there is no sympathy, no comprehension between you, and your heart is aching with this forbidden love, and he must seem in a way hateful; but you were not honest with him quite, if you promised to marry him, and yet held back your heart. You see what I mean?" "Yes," Lauraine says faintly, "I see." "Duty demands much, but it also repays much,", continues Lady Etwynde gently. "Heaven knows I am not fit to preach to you; but in the world, as we know it, Lauraine, there are so many faithless wives, so many divided households. Oh, my dear, don't you add to the number! You have many enemies of whom you know nothing, and they would gladly seize your name, and smirch its purity with scandals, and whispers, and evil words. I want you to be brave, and face them all, and live out your life nobly and well. I know I am bidding you do a hard thing; but it is right, and I am sure you see it." Lauraine bends her head down wearily, and lays it on her friend's shoulder. She feels spent, tired, exhausted. The tears throng to her eyes, her heart aches with dull and ceaseless pain. "I do see it!" she half sobs. "I will try."