This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1868 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIV. TOLD. rpHE end of May saw the Bathursts settled in town for the season, and (Mrs. Bathurst at least) satiated with society. The pretty, well-pleased, newlymarried woman was horribly unhappy, and her unhappiness was patent to her husband, and the cause of it was a sealed book. Very much to the surprise of two or three who had known Beatrix best in her unmarried days, her tastes and feelings in the matter of friends and acquaintances appeared to have undergone a complete change. She shunned Blanche and sought Marian, and this was a change that did not commend itself to Frank Bathurst. For, in spite of all the toleration shown, and the precautions taken by Mark Sutton, hard things were said of his wife. The presence of Ellen Bowden no longer gave a colouring of respectability to the intimacy with Mr. Eldale, for Ellen had gone home. Ellen Bowden had gone home sorely discomfited, and verv sad. For several months she had seen bright visions and dreamt fair dreams, and now at last she was compelled to awake to a dingy reality. She had been dazzled and delighted into a feeling of something almost resembling affection for the pretty aunt who was to her the tangible representative of the fabled world of fashion. It was hard on Ellen, therefore, to have that feeling dashed to pieces after months of cultivation, hy the discovery that she had been a cat's-paw in the fair hands of Mrs. Sutton. The dream of marrying Mr. Eldale had been a joyous one, the waking to the knowledge that she had been deceived only by her own vanity and Marian's vicious deceit, the man himself had thought too little of her even to try to deceive her, was a cruel one. So she had gone home 'humbled and heart-stricken; gone home to wake to other truths, which were equally hard and cru...