Then, at last, when she felt that she was no longer quite a young woman, she allowed herself to attempt to form friendships for herself, and among her friends was one of the other sex.

If fidelity in a wife be compatible with such friendship, if the married state does not exact from a woman the necessity of debarring herself from all friendly intercourse with any man except her lord, Lady Carbury was not faithless.

But Sir Carbury became jealous, spoke words which even she could not endure, did things which drove even her beyond the calculations of her prudence,--and she left him.

But even this she did in so guarded a way that, as to every step she took, she could prove her innocence.

Her life at that period is of little moment to our story, except that it is essential that the reader should know in what she had been slandered.