"I don't know, my lady."
"This is his punishment for having run counter to his uncle's wishes and his uncle's principles. You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled." The pitch, as Mr. Greenwood very well understood, was the first Marchioness. "Did he say anything about Hampstead?"
"Not a word."
"I suppose we are not to talk about him either! Unfortunate young man! I wonder whether he feels himself how thoroughly he is destroying the family."
"I should think he must."
"Those sort of men are so selfish that they never think of any one else. It does not occur to him what Frederic might be if he were not in the way. Nothing annoys me so much as when he pretends to be fond of the children."
"I suppose he won't come any more now."
"Nothing will keep him away,—unless he were to die." Mr. Greenwood shook his head sadly. "They say he rides hard."
"I don't know." There was something in the suggestion which at the moment made the clergyman almost monosyllabic.
"Or his yacht might go down with him."