`By no means: my heart is too thoroughly dried to be broken in a hurry, and I mean to live as long as I can.'

`Will you leave him then?'

`Yes.'

`When--and how?' asked he, eagerly.

`When I am ready, and how I can manage it most effectually.'

`But your child?'

`My child goes with me.'

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`He will not allow it.'

`I shall not ask him.'

`Ah, then, it is a secret flight you meditate!--but with whom, Mrs. Huntingdon?'

`With my son--and, possibly, his nurse.'

`Alone--and unprotected! But where can you go? What can you do? He will follow you and bring you back.'

`I have laid my plans too well for that. Let me once get clear of Grassdale, and I shall consider myself safe.'

Mr. Hargrave advanced one step towards me, looked me in the face, and drew in his breath to speak; but that look, that heightened colour, that sudden sparkle of the eye made my blood rise in wrath: I abruptly turned away, and, snatching up my brush, began to dash away at my canvass with rather too much energy for the good of the picture.

`Mrs. Huntingdon,' said he with bitter solemnity, `you are cruel--cruel to me--cruel to yourself.'

`Mr. Hargrave, remember your promise.'

`I must speak--my heart will burst if I don't! I have been silent long enough--and you must hear me!' cried he boldly intercepting my retreat to the door. `You tell me you owe no allegiance to your husband; he openly declares himself weary of you, and calmly gives you up to any body that will take you; you are about to leave him; no one will believe that you go alone--all the world will say, "She has left him at last, and who can wonder at it? Few can blame her, fewer still can pity him; but who is the companion of her flight?" Thus you will have no credit for your virtue (if you call it such): even your best friends will not believe in it; because, it is monstrous, and not to be credited--but by those who suffer from the effects of it, such cruel torments that they know it to be indeed reality.--But what can you do in the cold, rough world alone? you, a young and inexperienced woman, delicately nurtured, and utterly--'

`In a word, you would advise me to stay where I am,' interrupted I. `Well, I'll see about it.'

`By all means, leave him!' cried he earnestly, `but NOT alone! Helen! let me protect you!'

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