"Private things! what can you possibly mean, Helen? Miss Nevill was asking me if I had heard of John's arrival."
"I wonder she has the face to mention John's name!"
"Why, pray?"
"After her disgraceful conduct to him."
"I think you know very little about Miss Nevill's conduct, Helen."
"No, I dare say not. And you have always known a great deal more about it than anybody else. That I have always understood, Maurice."
Maurice looked very black, but he was silent.
"I am very glad I told her about the boudoir," continued Helen, spitefully. "How mortified she must feel to think that it has all slipped through her fingers and into mine. I do hope she will come up to the house. I shall show her all over it; she will wish she had not been such a fool!"
Maurice was looking at his wife with a singular expression.
"I begin to think you have a very bad heart, Helen," he said, with a contempt in his voice that was very near akin to disgust.