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They had been holand for three or four years, and then Sir Patrick had returned with soh he had been passionate, imperious, and often cruel, he had never been jealous A boy and a girl had been born to theent,--but the hts, had endeavoured to do her duty by them But from the commencement of her life she had been educated in deceit, and her married life had seemed to make the practice of deceit necessary to her Her mother had run away from her father, and she had been tossed to and fro between this and that protector, so any one to care for her, till she had been made sharp, incredulous, and untrustworthy by the difficulties of her position But she was clever, and had picked up an education and good manners amidst the difficulties of her childhood,--and had been beautiful to look at
To marry and have the co house and be respected, had been her a the first fifteen years of her reat difficulties She would se Her husband would even strike her,--and the first effort of her iven to conceal the fact from all the world In latter years he drank too led hard first to prevent the evil, and then to prevent and to hide the ill effects of the evil But in doing all this she schemed, and lied, and lived a life of er quite a young woman, she allowed herself to atte 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 fro 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 hiuarded 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 knohat she had been slandered For a ainst her by her husband's friends, and even by Sir Patrick hiradually the truth was known, and after a year's separation they caether and she reht hi the short period left to hi invalid But the scandal of her great misfortune had followed her, and so others that in the course of her married life Lady Carbury had run away froain by the kind-hearted old gentleman