"She told me that you had proposed to her before you proposed to me. Oh, Conrad, could that be true?"
The heart-rending tone in which the question was asked, the pathetic look that accompanied it, convinced Captain Winstanley that, if he valued his domestic peace, he must perjure himself.
"It had no more foundation than many other assertions of that young lady's," he said. "I may have paid her compliments, and praised her beauty; but how could I think of her for a wife, when you were by? Your soft confiding nature conquered me before I knew that I was hit."
He got up and went over to his wife and kissed her kindly enough, feeling sorry for her as he might have done for a wayward child that weeps it scarce knows wherefore, oppressed by a vague sense of affliction.
"Let us try to be happy together, Pamela," he pleaded, with a sigh, "life is weary work at best."
"That means that you are not happy, Conrad."
"My love, I am as happy as you will let me be."
"Have I ever opposed you in anything?"
"No, dear; but lately you have indulged in covert upbraidings that have plagued me sorely. Let us have no more of them. As for your daughter"—his face darkened at the mention of that name—"understand at once and for ever that she and I can never inhabit the same house. If she comes, I go. If you cannot live without her you must learn to live without me."
"Conrad, what have I done that you should talk of such a thing? Have I asked you to let Violet come home?"