The Earl and Countess of Dashleigh now found less enjoyment in the mutual converse which had once made their days flow so pleasantly and swiftly, and which had been especially appreciated by Dashleigh, whose reserve or pride made him avoid much general society. When Annabella’s wit sparkled before him, he had needed no other amusement, and in the first part of her wedded life, she had required no other auditor than him who listened with so partial an ear. But each now felt that a change had come, as water penetrating the crevices of a rock, and then freezing, sometimes by its sudden expansion bursts asunder the solid stone, and severs it as effectually by silent power as a gunpowder blast could have done, so secret pride in both hearts was gradually, fatally dividing those bound to each other by the closest of earthly ties! There was yet, however, no open quarrel; the world was not called in as a spectator of domestic disunion. There was no appearance of want of harmony as, on the occasion which I am about to relate, the husband and the wife sat together in the countess’s luxurious boudoir, Annabella on a damask sofa, engaged in German work, the earl at a writing-table, looking over a copy of the Times.

There had been a long silence between them. It was broken by a question from Dashleigh.

“Did you know, Annabella, that Augustine Aumerle was soon going to leave the vicarage and return to Aspendale?”

“I know little of what goes on at the vicarage,” replied Annabella, after pausing to count stitches in her pattern; “I think that Ida must have cut me, she so seldom comes to the hall.”

“There are to be great doings at Aspendale,” resumed Dashleigh; “I saw Augustine this morning during my ride, and he told me of his novel arrangements. He expects soon a visit from Verdon, the well-known Æronaut; I wonder that he keeps up acquaintance with one who may be regarded as a public exhibitor; but that is his business, not mine; it seems that they were school-fellows together, and it is not easy to break off old friendships.”

“If there be such a thing as a lofty profession it is Mr. Verdon’s, without doubt,” said Annabella; “the aspirations of an Æronaut must mount higher than even those of a peer!”

“It appears,” continued Dashleigh, without seeming to take notice of the observation, “that Mr. Verdon is to give his new grand balloon a trial trip from Augustine’s grounds.”

“Oh, how I should like to be there!” cried the countess.

“Augustine has invited us both,”—Annabella clapped her hands like a child,—“but the difficulty is that he will not be able himself to do the honours of his house, as he is to accompany Verdon in his upward flight.”

“Is he?” exclaimed the young countess; “that will be charming! Such a genius will mount up so high, that the silken ball will have no need of hydrogen gas! He will but inflate it with poetical ideas, and it will never stop short of the stars!”

The earl smiled at the idea. “I should be well pleased to see the ascent,” he observed; “but yet I am doubtful about accepting the invitation. It would, you see, be awkward for those in our position of life to be guests at the table of a man who was at the moment up in the clouds.”

Annabella burst into a girlish laugh. “You are afraid that he might look down even upon us,” she cried.

“I doubt whether etiquette would allow—”

“Throw etiquette to the dogs!” exclaimed Annabella, heedless of her husband’s look of disgust at such an audacious parody on Shakspeare. “I must, will go to Aspendale! It will be such fun! I have half a mind to ascend in the balloon myself!”

“It would be very unsuitable for a lady,” began the earl,—

“Unless her lord would accompany her,” said Annabella, archly; “we might obtain as fine a view as from Mont Blanc, without all the trouble of climbing.”

The earl always winced under any allusion to his mountain adventure.

“But then,” continued Annabella maliciously, “it would never do to get giddy,—suspended between earth and sky,—there would be no hope of the friendly intervention of a lady’s boa!”

“I should not have the slightest objection, not the slightest,” repeated the irritated earl, “to go in a balloon to-morrow; indeed, I think it very probable that I shall make one of Augustine’s party.”

Annabella was diverted to see that she had succeeded in putting her haughty lord on his mettle. It seems an instinct with some natures to delight in showing a power to tease, and it had become stronger with the countess since her disappointment regarding her romance. She was like a child playing with fire-arms, ignorant of their dangerous nature. Annabella knew the weakness of her husband’s nerves, but not the full strength of his pride.

“I was reading yesterday a curious account of a balloon ascent,” continued the earl, in a quieter tone; “and, by-the-bye, I have not quite finished it. It is in the —— Magazine; have you seen the last number, Annabella?”

“I glanced over it,” replied the lady, carelessly; “I suppose that it is lying on one of the tables.”

The earl rose and looked around for the magazine. His wife was too busy in arranging the shades for a withered rose-leaf to give him the least assistance. She was too busy to notice that he at length extended his search for the missing periodical to the drawer of her writing-table. Into that drawer, with habitual carelessness, the countess had thrust a little manuscript, to which, after hastily writing it, she had scarcely given a thought.

“What’s this?” exclaimed Dashleigh half aloud, as his gaze unwittingly fell upon the title—“The Precipice and the Peer.” The first glance had been purely accidental, for the earl was above petty curiosity, and would never have touched either paper or drawer had he supposed them to contain anything secret. But now an ungovernable impulse made him open the leaves, and hastily run his eye over the contents. Annabella had just succeeded in finding a missing shade of russet, when she was startled by a sudden sound resembling a stamp; and looking up, she saw the earl with his very temples crimsoned by rage, and her unfortunate burlesque in his hand.

“Lord Dashleigh!” exclaimed the countess, “that was never intended—”

“Never intended for my eye!” thundered the earl, who was in a violent passion; and tearing the manuscript into a hundred pieces, he trampled it under his foot!

“That is the action of a pettish child!” exclaimed Annabella, almost as much irritated as her husband, her eyes flashing indignant fire.

“Leave the room, insolent girl!” cried the earl; and turning round as he spoke, he perceived to his surprise and inexpressible annoyance that he had two unexpected auditors—his servant having a moment before opened the door, to announce the Duke of Montleroy, who was following close behind!

Dashleigh was so much confused—overwhelmed at being discovered by such a person in such a position—that of a husband quarrelling with his own wife, and giving way to a burst of passion degrading to any man, but most of all to one of his exalted station—that he remained for some minutes transfixed, totally unable to speak. Annabella, on the contrary, lost none of her self-possession. She swept past the bewildered duke, with a passing reverence which might have beseemed an empress, and proceeded at once to her own chamber, without uttering a word. As soon as she had reached it, she violently rang her bell.

The maid who obeyed the summons found her mistress sitting at her toilette table, calm, tearless, but pale with suppressed emotion. She was selecting various articles of jewellery from a large mahogany box.

“Bates, bid the coachman put the horses to directly, and do you prepare to accompany me in the carriage,” was the countess’s brief command.

The lady had, not an hour before, returned from a lengthened drive, and the order surprised the maid. She ventured to say something about the late hour and the appearance of coming rain.

“Let it rain torrents—what matters it?” cried Annabella. “Bear my message to Mullins, and return without delay to pack up the things which I shall require. I shall sleep at the vicarage to-night.”

The lady’s-maid hurried away to the servant’s hall, which she found in a state of considerable excitement, for the news had already spread like wild-fire through the house that my lord had quarrelled with my lady, torn up her writings, ordered her out of the room—nay, as it was rumoured, had actually struck her on the face.

“Take my word for it,” cried the butler, with the air of one who can see much further through a millstone than others,—“take my word for it this has something to do with the odd couple as came here the other day,—the fine lady, and the fierce old man with black brows and long white hair.”

“Yes,” replied another servant, with a nod, “I’ve noticed that nothing has gone right up stairs since them two drove off in the donkey-chaise, and my lady shut herself up in her room, as if she’d had a down-right set-down from my lord.”

“Oh, for the matter of that,” laughed Bates, “she’d give as good as she gets, any day. The earl has ordered her out of the room; but she’s going a little further than may be he wished or expected. She has a spirit of her own, has my lady!”

In the meantime, Annabella was pacing up and down her apartment with a heart full almost to bursting. “I will not stay here, no, not an hour!” she exclaimed; “he shall find that he has no weak girl to deal with—no slave to submit to his pride and caprice! I have borne much, but this I will not bear. I will not endure to be trampled upon by a tyrant, even though that tyrant be a husband. I will go to the vicarage at once. Mr. Aumerle will not forget that my mother was the sister of the wife whom he loved. He will not deny the shelter of his roof to an orphan, so cruelly driven from her own. I will impose no burden upon my friends. I ask, I need nothing from any one but the sympathy which my griefs, and the justice which my wrongs demand.”

Thus, asking counsel only of her own angry passions, casting aside all higher considerations, and seeking but the gratification of her bitter pride and resentment, the young Countess of Dashleigh prepared to take a step which scarcely any circumstances could justify. Intoxicated as she was with anger, the voice of reason and of conscience were alike unheard or unheeded. Indignant at the errors of her husband, Annabella was blinded to her own; and when she found her domestic happiness wrecked, her youthful hopes scattered like leaves in a storm, she recognised not the cause of the evil—she traced not in the desolation around her the work of the demon Pride.