years over, no one cared to hear of the remainder of her life. If there
were dregs left in her cup, she drank them alone. A woman who had no
beauty was often a mere drudging or child-bearing wife, scapegoat for
ill-humour and morning headaches; victim, slave, or unnoticed
appendage. This the whilom toast Lady Wildairs had become, and there
were many like her.

The Earl of Dunstanwolde, who was the nobleman who had spoken to the
Duke and Duchess of the Gloucestershire Baronet, was a distant kinsman,
and a somewhat frequent visitor both at their Graces' country estates
and at their town establishment, Osmonde House. His own estate was near
Gloucestershire, and he knew the stories of Wildairs Hall, as did so
many others.

This gentleman was somewhat past middle age, and was the owner of such
qualities of mind and heart as had won for him the friendship of all
thinking persons who knew him. A man of kindly refinement and dignity,
familiar with arts and letters, and generous in his actions both to his
equals and his inferiors, he was of ancient blood, and had large
estates in the country and a great house in town.

But, notwithstanding the honourableness of his position, and the ease
of his circumstances, he was not a happy gentleman, having made a
love-match in his youth, and lost his passionately worshipped consort
at the birth of her first child, who had lived but two hours. He had
been so happy in his union that, being of a constant nature, he could
not console himself for his bereavement, and had remained a widower,
content that his estates and titles should pass to a distant cousin who
was the next heir. He was a sad-faced gentleman with delicately cut
features, and eyes which looked as if they had beheld sorrow, there