"He has been up to something more reckless and desperate than usual, perhaps," suggested Lady Denby.
"Perhaps," assented Lady Eleanor, coolly.
"You say that with delicious sang froid," remarked Lady Denby. "I suppose if he had been committing murder or treason it would make no difference to you."
"Not one atom," said the girl, her color deepening.
"The only crime that would ruin him in your eyes would be matrimony with some one other than yourself."
Lady Eleanor started, and bit her lip, then she forced a laugh.
"I don't know whether even that would cure me," she said. "I should hate his wife, hate her with an active hatred which would embitter all my days; but I would go on caring for him and hoping that his wife might die, and that I might marry him after all."
Lady Denby shrugged her shoulders, and looked at the proud face, with its tightly drawn lips, and now brooding eyes.
"Yours is about the worst case I think I have ever met with, Eleanor," she said.