"I will not trouble your ladyship to leave the room," said Miles, rising coldly from his seat. "I am going to my studio; I should have remembered that husbands are often de trop."
"Pray, stay, Miles!" exclaimed Minnie, seizing his arm, like the Minnie of old. "There can be nothing which you may not hear, that is, if it only concerns me," and she looked at Dora inquiringly.
"I should prefer speaking to you alone," answered the other coldly. "It is something which distresses me much, yet almost too painful, I hope, to be true."
"May I ask," said he, pausing on the threshold of the door, "if it be any thing relating to Lord Randolph Gray?"
"It is!" answered she, with a look of surprise.
"And—my wife?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation.
"Then you are not in ignorance of it?" she inquired, with an amazed look, mingled with one of contempt. "And you and Minnie are——"
"Friends, as you see," he said, turning back and reseating himself, and by a movement of generous feeling, taking his wife's trembling hand in his. "Now, Lady Dora," he continued, "you may tell all you have heard, and we may be able in a measure, to correct any inaccuracies."
"How do you mean, Mr. Tremenhere?" she said haughtily. "Do you accuse me of possible untruth?"
"Not you, Lady Dora, but your informant, whoever he may be."