“How often,” she went on, “I have heard you laughing over what you used to call your ‘poverty!’ how often you have made me mock-speeches of congratulation on my wealth! Oh, Marian, never laugh again. Thank God for your poverty⁠—it has made you your own mistress, and has saved you from the lot that has fallen on me .”

A sad beginning on the lips of a young wife!⁠—sad in its quiet plainspoken truth. The few days we had all passed together at Blackwater Park had been many enough to show me⁠—to show anyone⁠—what her husband had married her for.