If
she could do that, and provide them with an income, of course they
would marry. On the present occasion Phineas was told off to take
Miss Palliser down to dinner. "You saw the Chilterns before they left
town, I know," she said.
"Oh, yes. I am constantly in Portman Square."
"Of course. Lady Laura has gone down to Scotland;--has she not;--and
all alone?"
"She is alone now, I believe."
"How dreadful! I do not know any one that I pity so much as I do her.
I was in the house with her some time, and she gave me the idea of
being the most unhappy woman I had ever met with. Don't you think
that she is very unhappy?"
"She has had very much to make her so," said Phineas. "She was
obliged to leave her husband because of the gloom of his
insanity;--and now she is a widow."
"I don't suppose she ever really--cared for him; did she?" The
question was no sooner asked than the poor girl remembered the
whole story which she had heard some time back,--the rumour of the
husband's jealousy and of the wife's love, and she became as red as
fire, and unable to help herself.
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