“Do you believe Fledgeby?”

“Sophronia, I never believe anybody. I never have, my dear, since I believed you. But it looks like it.”

Having given her this backhanded reminder of her mutinous observations to the skeleton, Mr. Lammle rose from table⁠—perhaps, the better to conceal a smile, and a white dint or two about his nose⁠—and took a turn on the carpet and came to the hearthrug.

“If we could have packed the brute off with Georgiana;⁠—but however; that’s spilled milk.”

As Lammle, standing gathering up the skirts of his dressing-gown with his back to the fire, said this, looking down at his wife, she turned pale and looked down at the ground. With a sense of disloyalty upon her, and perhaps with a sense of personal danger⁠—for she was afraid of him⁠—even afraid of his hand and afraid of his foot, though he had never done her violence⁠—she hastened to put herself right in his eyes.