"She preferred to remain behind," replied Mrs. Allison in a low-toned aside, "and as she would have been of no use whatever, we did not urge her to come."
"It is just as well," was Mr. Dinsmore's comment.
Very tenderly and carefully the poor invalid was lifted and placed in the ambulance by her sons and brothers. The former accompanied her in it, while the latter, with Mrs. Allison, entered the Roselands family carriage, and drove thither considerably in advance of the more slowly moving ambulance.
"Has Virginia made a really good match?" Mr. Dinsmore asked, addressing his sister Adelaide.
"Good! it could hardly be worse!" she exclaimed. "Would you have believed it? we found them in a tenement-house, living most wretchedly."
"Is it possible! He was not wealthy then? Or has he lost his means since the marriage?"
"As far as I can learn," said Mr. Allison, "he has always lived by his wits; he is a professional gambler now."
"Dreadful! How does he treat his wife?"
"Very badly indeed, if we may credit her story. They live, as the saying is, like cat and dog, actually coming to blows at times. They are both bitterly disappointed, each having married the other merely for money; which neither had."
Mr. Dinsmore looked greatly concerned. "Virginia was never a favorite of mine," he remarked, "but I do not like to think of her as suffering from either poverty or the abusive treatment of a bad husband. Can nothing be done to better her condition?"