Lady Meredith now advised her friend to carry out this determination without saying anything about her husband's terrible iniquities, and then to send the letter up to Lady Lufton as soon as she reached the parsonage.

"Mamma will never know that you received it here," said Lady Meredith.

But Mrs.Robarts would not consent to this.

Such a course seemed to her to be cowardly.

She knew that her husband was doing wrong; she felt that he knew it himself; but still it was necessary that she should defend him.