"You must have been a very beautiful girl," I said.
"Yes, so much the worse for me." She seemed to repent of the words as soon as they were uttered.
"I mean," she added, quickly, "that my grandmother hated me the more for it."
There was silence between us for some minutes, then she added:
"You may imagine, after such an unloved life, how I love Lance."
"He is the best fellow in the world," I said, "and the woman who could deceive him ought to be shot."
"What woman would deceive him?" she asked. "Indeed, for matter of that, what woman could? I am his wife!"
"It happens very often," I said, trying to speak carelessly, "that good and loyal men like Lance are the most easily deceived."
"It should not be so," she said. She was startled again, I saw it in her face.
That same afternoon we drove into Vale Royal. Mrs. Fleming had several poor people whom she wished to see, and some shopping to do.