"I had better finish it now, if you please. What is this? How does he dare send his ribald jokes to me in such a matter? No, I do not suppose I ever shall like Dr. Proudie; I have never expected it. A matter of conscience with him! Well—well, well. Had I not read it myself, I could not have believed it of him; I would not positively have believed it. 'Coming from my parish, he could not go to the Duke of Omnium!' And it is what I would wish to have said. People fit for this parish should not be fit for the Duke of Omnium's house. And I had trusted that he would have this feeling more strongly than any one else in it. I have been deceived—that's all."
"He has done nothing to deceive you, Lady Lufton."
"I hope he will not have deceived you, my dear. 'More money;' yes, it is probable that he will want more money. There is your letter, Fanny. I am very sorry for it. I can say nothing more." And she folded up the letter and gave it back to Mrs. Robarts.
"I thought it right to show it you," said Mrs. Robarts.
"It did not much matter whether you did or no; of course I must have been told."
"He especially begs me to tell you."
"Why, yes; he could not very well have kept me in the dark in such a matter. He could not neglect his own work, and go and live with gamblers and adulterers at the Duke of Omnium's without my knowing it."
And now Fanny Robarts's cup was full—full to the overflowing. When she heard these words she forgot all about Lady Lufton, all about Lady Meredith, and remembered only her husband—that he was her husband, and, in spite of his faults, a good and loving husband; and that other fact also she remembered, that she was his wife.
"Lady Lufton," she said, "you forget yourself in speaking in that way of my husband."
"What!" said her ladyship; "you are to show me such a letter as that, and I am not to tell you what I think?"
"Not if you think such hard things as that. Even you are not justified in speaking to me in that way, and I will not hear it."
"Heighty-tighty!" said her ladyship.
"Whether or no he is right in going to the Duke of Omnium's, I will not pretend to judge. He is the judge of his own actions, and neither you nor I."
