'a season of dead leaves, damp, and dreariness.

I should like to get away to Montpellier or Nice as soon as we can.' Her ladyship gave him a scathing look, half-scornful, half-incredulous.
'You surely would not dream of leaving the country,' she said, 'under present circumstances.

So long as you are here to answer all charges no one will interfere with your liberty; but if you were to cross the Channel--' 'My slanderers might insinuate that I was running away,' interrupted Maulevrier, 'although the very fact of my return ought to prove to every one that I am able to meet and face this cabal.' 'Is it a cabal ?' asked her ladyship, looking at him with a gaze that searched his soul.

'Can you meet their charges?
Can you live down this hideous accusation, and hold up your head as a man of honour ?' The sensualist's blue eyes nervously shunned that look of earnest interrogation.

His lips answered the wife's spoken question with a lie, a lie made manifest by the expression of his countenance.
'I am not afraid,' he said.
His wife answered not a word.