"Then it's not likely, you know, that Lolly would talk to the man. You must be mistaken, Mrs. Powell."
The ensign's widow simpered and lifted her eyebrows, gently shaking her head, with a gesture that seemed to say, "Did you ever find me mistaken?"
"No, no, my dear Mr. Mellish," she said, with a half-playful air of conviction, "there was no mistake on my part. Mrs. Mellish was talking to the half-witted person; but you know the person is a sort of servant to Mr. Conyers, and Mrs. Mellish may have had a message for Mr. Conyers."
"A message for him!" roared John, stopping suddenly and planting his stick upon the ground in a movement of unconcealed passion; "what messages should she have for him? Why should she want people fetching and carrying between her and him?"
Mrs. Powell's pale eyes lit up with a faint yellow flame in their greenish pupils as John broke out thus. "It is coming—it is coming—it is coming!" her envious heart cried, and she felt that a faint flush of triumph was gathering in her sickly cheeks.
But in another moment John Mellish recovered his self-command. He was angry with himself for that transient passion. "Am I going to doubt her again?" he thought. "Do I know so little of the nobility of her generous soul that I am ready to listen to every whisper, and terrify myself with every look?"
They had walked about a hundred yards away from the lodge by this time. John turned irresolutely, as if half inclined to go back.
"A message for Conyers," he said to Mrs. Powell;—"ay, ay, to be sure. It's likely enough she might want to send him a message, for she's cleverer at all the stable business than I am. It was she who told me not to enter Cherry-stone for the Chester Cup, and, egad! I was obstinate, and I was licked; as I deserved to be, for not listening to my dear girl."
Mrs. Powell would fain have boxed John's ear, had she been tall enough to reach that organ. Infatuated fool! would he never open his dull eyes and see the ruin that was preparing for him?
"You are a good husband, Mr. Mellish," she said with a gentle melancholy. "Your wife ought to be happy!" she added, with a sigh which plainly hinted that Mrs. Mellish was miserable.