"But if you loved him——"
"No, Lesley, your grandfather would never have heard of such a marriage. He had his own plans for me. My dear, I am not saying a word against your father in saying this. I am only telling you the fact—that he was what is often called a self-made, self-educated man, who could not possibly be styled my equal in the eyes of society. His father had been a small tradesman in Devonshire. The son being clever and—and—handsome, made his way a little in the world. He became a journalist: he wrote for magazines and newspapers and reviews: he was what is called a literary hack. He had no certain prospects, no certain income, when he married me. I think," said Lady Alice, with a sort of cold scorn, which was intensified by the very softness of her tones, "that he could not have done a more unjustifiable thing than persuade a girl in my position to marry him."
Lesley felt a slight diminution of sympathy with her mother. Perhaps Lady Alice was conscious of some change in her face, for she added hastily.
"Don't misjudge me, Lesley. If there had been between us the strong and tender love of which women too often dream, poverty might perhaps have been forgotten. It sounds terribly worldly to draw attention to the fact that poverty is apt to kill a love which was not very strong at the beginning. But the fact was that neither Caspar Brooke nor I knew our own minds. He was three-and-twenty and I was eighteen. We married in haste, and we certainly repented very much at leisure."
"Was he not—kind?" asked Lesley, timidly.
"Kind?" said her mother, with a sigh. "Oh, yes, perhaps he was kind—at first. Until he was tired of me, or I was tired of him. I don't know on which side the disillusion was felt first. Think where I came from—from the dear old Castle, the moors, the lochs, the free fresh air of Scotland, to a dreary lodging of two little rooms in a dingy street, where I had to cut and contrive and economize to make ends meet. I was an ignorant girl, and I could not do it. I got into debt, and my husband was angry with me. Why should I tell you the petty, sordid details of my life? I soon found out that I was miserable and that he was miserable too."
Lesley listened breathlessly with hidden face. The story was full of humiliation for her. It seemed like a desecration of all that she had hitherto held dear.
"My father and my friends would not forgive me," Lady Alice went on. "In our direst straits of poverty, I am glad to say that I never appealed to them. We struggled on together—your father and I—until you were four years old. Then a change came—a change which made it impossible for me to bear the misery of my life. Your father——"
She came to a sudden stop, and sat with eyes fixed on the opposite wall, a curious expression of mingled desolation and contempt upon her cold, clear-cut face. For some reason or other Lesley felt afraid to hear what her mother had to say.
"Mamma, don't tell me! Don't look like that," she cried. "I can't bear to hear it! Why need you tell me any more?"