make it possible for me to marry. Between him
and the duchess (whose interest is not small) this
has been effected, so I waited till I got my
company—I am Captain Fortescue now, if you please
—and then sold my commission, and with my
own small means, and my place in the Shot and
Shell Department, we manage to get on in a
very inexplicable but delightful way."

"And the privations which were to make your
wife so wretched?" I asked, as I shook him
warmly by the hand.

"Looked much worse at a distance than they
do close," said my friend. "I do think,
sincerely," he continued, "that an imprudent
marriage ought to be made every now and then, if
it is only to bring out the immense amount of
real kindness that there is in the world. I am
perfectly sure that if two married people,
however poor they may be, will only put a good face
upon it, and neither sink down into gloomy
despair on the one hand, nor shut themselves
up in a haughty reserve on the other—I am
perfectly sure, I say, that there is so much real
goodness in the world, that they need never know
that they are poorer than other people, or suffer
any of those humiliations, the dread of which
has kept many true and loving hearts asunder.
But come," said Fortescue, "I am getting
poetical. Let us go inside, and see how Lord
and Lady Sneyd are getting on. He'll take no
notice of either of us, you'll see."

Fortescue left me for a time to go and see
after his wife, and I went up into the strangers'
room. There was a good large company
assembled, waiting for the supper hour, English
tourists, German students, and some French
officers—among them, sure enough, sitting next
to a very showy and over-dressed lady with
jewellery all over her, with a very strong soupçon
of paint upon her countenance, with a long
curl brought over her left shoulder—there was
Lord Sneyd.

A changed man already. Feeble and effeminate
he was still, but he had ceased to be the
insolent languid petit-maître and coxcomb he
was when I had last seen him. He was lowered
in tone. His whole faculties seemed to be
entirely absorbed in attention on his better-half,
off whom he never took his eyes.

"I hear," said Fortescue to me, as he took
his place by my side at the supper-table, "that
he is intensely jealous of her, and leads, in
consequence, the most miserable life imaginable.
Look how he is watching, now that that French
officer is speaking to her. The man is only
offering her some potatoes, but Sneyd looks as
if he would like—if he had courage enough—to
put his knife into him."

It was true. A more pitiable and contemptible
sight I never witnessed than this man's
jealousy. It extended itself to the French
officers opposite, to the young English under-
graduate who sat next to the lady, and even to
the good-looking young monk who—a perfect
man of the world, and a very agreeable fellow—
took the head of the supper-table. I must say
that Lady Sneyd's appearance was not calculated
to quiet her lord and master's discomfort. A
more liberal use of a pair of fine rolling black
eyes I never saw made. Not long after supper
this worthy pair retired, not the slightest
attempt at recognition of either Fortescue or
myself being made on the part of this distinguished
nobleman. Perhaps he was of opinion that our
fascinations would be dangerous with his amiable
consort. Perhaps he felt a little ashamed of
himself.

As soon as those two were gone, or at least
after a reasonable interval, Fortescue addressed
himself to the young monk who played the part
of host, and remarked that he would go up-stairs,
and, if his wife were somewhat recovered from
her fatigues, would persuade her to come down
and get thoroughly warmed at the fire before
retiring for the night.

Our host, with that interest in other people's
affairs which foreigners either feel to so delightful
an extent, or assume so admirably, expressed
his earnest hope that "Madame would be able
to descend," and Fortescue left the apartment.

I own that at this moment I felt somewhat
nervous.

In a short time the door opened, and Fortescue
appeared with his wife on his arm. She came
up to me at once, and we shook hands cordially,
while I spoke such words of congratulation as I
had ready, which were, in truth, not very many.
At one glance I saw that at all events the
expression of her face was safe. A great matter
that, at any rate.

The injury which she had sustained being
from a kick, and not from a fall or dragging
along on the ground, was confined entirely to
one portion (the left side) of her face. That
that injury had been a terrible one it was impossible
not to see even now. The brow immediately
over the eye was scarred, and the eyebrow
something interrupted in its even sweep;
the cheek was scarred and indented, and there
was a slight scar on the nostril, all on this
same left side; but the eye, sheltered in its
somewhat sunken recess, had escaped; the
mouth was unhurt, and, above all, there was
the expression, the general look, of which the
attractiveness had been so great. That fearful
injury which I had looked down on from the
turret-window at Creel had left much less
damage behind than one could even have hoped.

We talked pleasantly, all three together—the
rest of the company having retired, and our
host too—for nearly an hour. We talked of
our travels, of the places to which they were
bound and from which I was returning, and of
a hundred other things, until the hour
admonished us that it was time to part for the night.

As we rose to say "Good night"—my friend
and his wife standing up together—I thought I
had never seen a happier or a better-matched
couple. Suddenly a thought seemed to strike
her. She touched her wounded cheek slightly
with her hand.

"Would you have known me?" she asked,
smiling.

"No one can tell," said Fortescue, interrupting