to treat the conversation as far as it had hitherto gone.
"It seems to me, Wil," he said, seriously, "that the fewer things one conceals from the knowledge of one's wife, the better."
He waited for a moment or two, and then resumed, rather sadly.
"I can only offer you bachelor counsel, my friend. It is possible that I may be wrong—unworldly and unwise. It is difficult for the unmarried to set up their idealities against the realities of the married. It has not been given to me to know the happiness of marriage—possibly it never will be given to me. I can only base my judgment, therefore, upon fancy. It seems to me that if Heaven had been pleased to give me a wife, I should not seek to appear to her other than I really am. I should not care to be perpetually playing a part before her. I should like her to know me thoroughly, and both the good and evil that may be in me. Certainly, I would hide little from her. Yet I should hope, upon the whole, to merit her love and to win it, not by a trick or a concealment, but by truth and honesty. I should hope that, after allowance was made for the bad, a residuum of good would yet remain, sufficient to justify her affection in the past and in the present, as I know that my whole conduct should be framed to deserve and hold her love and her trust in the future. But this may be folly. A man cannot give practical advice upon subjects with which he has no practical acquaintance. So again, I ask, why are we drifting into these new topics?"
Wilford did not answer. He moved about uneasily. He drew hard at his cigar; but it had gone out, and he flung it into the grate. He passed his hand across his forehead.
"Let us put a case," he said.
"Certainly," Martin answered, adding, in a low voice, "'putting a case' sounds less committing than 'making a confession,' but it amounts to much the same thing. Yet a veil is a veil, no matter how flimsy it may be. Let us hear your case, Wil," he said aloud.
Wilford rose from the sofa, and walked up and down the room several times with a very disturbed air. He stopped short, suddenly.
"Let us put, then," he said, "the case of a man who"—but he was unable to continue. He walked to the window. "No, Martin," he resumed at length, "I can't talk to you in that sham way. The case I want to put is my own. Let me say so plainly. I have a story to tell—a very painful one. Let me ask, in beginning it, your forbearance, your sympathy, your pity."
"Surely, Wil," said Martin, kindly.
"I ask this, because I fear that in my conduct you may find much to condemn. I must tell you this story, Martin; and yet I dread lest, having told it, 1 shall forfeit your esteem—lest I should incur your censure. You don't know how hard that would be to hear. You cannot think, Martin, how cruelly the loss of such a good, proved friend as you have been, would fall upon me now."
"But you exaggerate, Wil. You know—you must be sure—that what you dread is barely possible."
"Listen, then. We parted as schoolboys, to meet again as men. A long interval was thus passed, in which we were unknown to each other—an interval of many years, and not the least important years of life. We have given to each other the broad outline of the manner of our lives during that time. With that general account we have been satisfied; indeed the matter seemed to be hardly worth deep inquiry, or dwelling upon, or returning to. Perhaps we have been too busy with the present and the future to interest ourselves very greatly in the past. A brief sketch of the interval, and we were both ready enough to resume our old friendship, and place it on a basis not less strong, and true, and sure than it was years ago.
"This, however, you did know. That many of the years passed by you at the university had been spent by me out of England. That my absence resulted in a great measure from a serious disagreement with my father. That I returned home at last upon the receipt of intelligence that he was dangerously ill. That I arrived in time to see him—but unavailingly. I was denounced as a prodigal son; I was unforgiven—disinherited. The estates were left to my brother. In due time I came to London—relinquished my name—found you in the Temple—married. So far my history to the present time, as it is known to you. But it is important that I should take it up at a much earlier date."
After a slight pause, he resumed.
"You have heard me speak of my uncle, Colonel Hugh Hadfield?"
"I remember to have heard you mention his name. I have little recollection of anything else concerning him."
"He was my father's junior by some few years. He had passed a considerable portion of his life in India. He retired from the service possessed of a large fortune. The brothers had seen very little of each other, and were not particularly good friends; indeed, that was hardly to be wondered at, they had lived apart for so long. But some few months of the year my uncle always spent at the Grange. He occupied, too, a handsome town house in Harley Street. During the winter he resided generally at Paris. He was something of an invalid. His constitution had been much tried by the climate, I fancy, and probably by other causes. He had nothing of that robust appearance my father retained almost to the last; he looked much older, was very thin and bent. I first recollect him—and I must have been then quite a child—walking about the grounds of the Grange in the summer time, dressed in very light-coloured clothes; on his head a large straw hat, bound round with muslin many times folded. I know his appearance used to strike me as very strange—his skin was so yellow, his eyes so fierce and rolling, his eyebrows so jet-black, although his crumpled hair was as white as snow. He was incessantly smoking; drinking cold brandy-and-water; very imperious and violent in his manner; with a habit of swearing hard at everything and everybody. Yet he was kind too, in his way, to my brother and myself. I believe I was especially a favourite of his; possibly because I was the