d, who was out of breath at the effrontery of the
pair, toward the door. 'Are you blind, ma'am? Have you gone foolish?
What should I have sent for you for, but to protect her? I see your
mind; and off with the prude, pray! Madame will have my room; clear away
every sign of me there. I sleep out; I can find a bed anywhere. And bolt
and chain the house-door to-night against Cecil Baskelett; he informs me
that he has taken possession.'

Rosamund's countenance had become less austere.

'Captain Baskelett!' she exclaimed, leaning to Beauchamp's views on the
side of her animosity to Cecil; 'he has been promised by his uncle the
use of a set of rooms during the year, when the mistress of the house
is not in occupation. I stipulated expressly that he was to see you and
suit himself to your convenience, and to let me hear that you and he had
agreed to an arrangement, before he entered the house. He has no right
to be here, and I shall have no hesitation in locking him out.'

Beauchamp bade her go, and not be away more than five minutes; and then
he would drive to the hotel for the luggage.

She scanned him for a look of ingenuousness that might be trusted, and
laughed in her heart at her credulity for expecting it of a man in such
a case. She saw Renee sitting stonily, too proudly self-respecting to
put on a mask of flippant ease. These lovers might be accomplices in
deceiving her; they were not happy ones, and that appeared to her to be
some assurance that she did well in obeying him.

Beauchamp closed the door on her. He walked back to Renee with a
thoughtful air that was consciously acted; his only thought being--now
she knows me!

Renee looked up at him once. Her eyes were unaccusing, unquestioning.

With the violation of the secresy of her flight she had lost her
initiative and her intrepidity. The world of human eyes glared on her
through the windows of the two she had been exposed to, paralyzing her
brain and caging her spirit of revolt. That keen wakefulness of her
self-defensive social instinct helped her to an understanding of her
lover's plan to preserve her reputation, or rather to give her a corner
of retreat in shielding the worthless thing--twice detested as her cloak
of slavery coming from him! She comprehended no more. She was a house of
nerves crowding in against her soul like fiery thorns, and had no
space within her torture for a sensation of gratitude or suspicion; but
feeling herself hurried along at