y deep
character on her portion of understanding. The battle for domination
would then begin.

Anticipation of the possibility of it hewed division between the young
man's pride of being and his warmer feelings. Had he been free of
the dread of subjection, he would have sunk to kiss the feet of the
statuesque young woman, arms in air, firm-fronted over the hideous death
that tore at her skirts.

CHAPTER XXXIV. A SURVEY OF THE RIDE OF THE WELSH CAVALIERS ESCORTING THE
COUNTESS OF FLEETWOOD TO KENTISH ESSLEMONT

A formal notification from the earl, addressed to the Countess of
Fleetwood in the third person, that Esslemont stood ready to receive
her, autocratically concealed her lord's impatience to have her there;
and by the careful precision with which the stages of her journey were
marked, as places where the servants despatched to convey their lady
would find preparations for her comfort, again alarmed the disordered
mother's mind on behalf of the child she deemed an object of the
father's hatred, second to his hatred of the mother. But the mother
could defend herself, the child was prey the child of a detested wife
was heir to his title and estates. His look at the child, his hasty one
look down at her innocent, was conjured before her as resembling a kick
at a stone in his path. His indifference to the child's Christian names
pointed darkly over its future.

The distempered wilfulness of a bruised young woman directed her
thoughts. She spoke them in the tone of reason to her invalid friend
Rebecca Wythan, who saw with her, felt with her, yearned to retain her
till breath was gone. Owain Wythan had his doubts of the tyrant guilty
of maltreating this woman of women. 'But when you do leave Wales,' he
said, 'you shall be guarded up to your haven.'

Carinthia was not awake to his meaning then. She sent a short letter of
reply, imitating the style of her lord; very baldly stating, that she
was unable to leave Wales because of her friend's illness and her part
as nurse. Regrets were unmentioned.

Meanwhile Rebecca Wythan was passing to death. Not cheerlessly, more and
more faintly, her thread of life ran to pause, resembling a rill of
the drought; and the thinner-it grew, the shrewder were her murmurs for
Carinthia's ears in commending 'the most real of husbands of an unreal
wife' to her friendly care of him when he would no longer see the shadow
he had wedded. She had the privilege of a soul beyond our minor