‘I had to get level with you over my forty predecessors. You old Bluebeard! But I did harrow you a little—didn’t I?’
‘Harrow me! I’m raw all over. It’s a nightmare. O Maude, how could you have the heart?’
‘Oh, it was lovely—beautiful!’
‘It was dreadful.’
‘And how jealous you were! Oh, I am so glad!’
‘I don’t think,’ said Frank, as he put his arms round her, ‘that I ever quite realised before—’
And just then Jemima came in with the tray.
CONCERNING MRS. BEETON
Frank Crosse had only been married some months when he first had occasion to suspect that his wife had some secret sorrow. There was a sadness and depression about her at times, for which he was unable to account. One Saturday afternoon he happened to come home earlier than he was expected, and entering her bedroom suddenly, he found her seated in the basket-chair in the window, with a large book upon her knees. Her face, as she looked up at him with a mixed expression of joy and of confusion, was stained by recent tears. She put the book hastily down upon the dressing-stand.
‘Maude, you’ve been crying.’