their sweet faces upturned
expectantly. This roused her: she shook her head at them, waved them
off, and overcome with this painful exertion, sank back in the nearest
chair.

Grandcourt had risen too. He was doubly annoyed--at the scene itself,
and at the sense that no imperiousness of his could save him from it;
but the task had to be gone through, and there was the administrative
necessity of arranging things so that there should be as little
annoyance as possible in the future. He was leaning against the corner
of the fire-place. She looked up at him and said, bitterly--

"All this is of no consequence to you. I and the children are
importunate creatures. You wish to get away again and be with Miss
Harleth."

"Don't make the affair more disagreeable than it need be. Lydia. It is
of no use to harp on things that can't be altered. Of course, its
deucedly disagreeable to me to see you making yourself miserable. I've
taken this journey to tell you what you must make up your mind to--you
and the children will be provided for as usual--and there's an end of
it."

Silence. She dared not answer. This woman with the intense, eager look
had had the iron of the mother's anguish in her soul, and it had made
her sometimes capable of a repression harder than shrieking and
struggle. But underneath the silence there was an outlash of hatred and
vindictiveness: she wished that the marriage might make two others
wretched, besides herself. Presently he went on--

"It will be better for you. You may go on living here. But I think of
by-and-by settling a good sum on you and the children, and you can live
where you like. There will be nothing for you to complain of then.
Whatever happens, you will feel secure. Nothing could be done
beforehand. Every thing has gone on in a hurry."

Grandcourt ceased his slow delivery of sentences. He did not expect her
to thank him, but he considered that she might reasonably be contented;
if it were possible for Lydia to be contented. She showed no change,
and after a minute he said--

"You have never had any reason to fear that I should be illiberal. I
don't care a curse about the money."

"If you did care about it, I suppose you would not give it us," said
Lydia. The sarcasm was irrepressible.

"That's a devilishly unfair thing to say," Grandcourt replied, in a
lower tone; "and I advise you not to say that sort of thing again."

"Should you punish me by leaving the children in beggary?" In