had not given her. She fancied that his
eyes showed a delight in torturing her. How could she be defiant? She
had nothing to say that would touch him--nothing but what would give
him a more painful grasp on her consciousness.

"He delights in making the dogs and horses quail: that is half his
pleasure in calling them his," she said to herself, as she opened the
jewel-case with a shivering sensation.

"It will come to be so with me; and I shall quail. What else is there
for me? I will not say to the world, 'Pity me.'"

She was about to ring for her maid when she heard the door open behind
her. It was Grandcourt who came in.

"You want some one to fasten them," he said, coming toward her.

She did not answer, but simply stood still, leaving him to take out the
ornaments and fasten them as he would. Doubtless he had been used to
fasten them on some one else. With a bitter sort of sarcasm against
herself, Gwendolen thought, "What a privilege this is, to have robbed
another woman of!"

"What makes you so cold?" said Grandcourt, when he had fastened the
last ear-ring. "Pray put plenty of furs on. I hate to see a woman come
into a room looking frozen. If you are to appear as a bride at all,
appear decently."

This martial speech was not exactly persuasive, but it touched the
quick of Gwendolen's pride and forced her to rally. The words of the
bad dream crawled about the diamonds still, but only for her: to others
they were brilliants that suited her perfectly, and Grandcourt inwardly
observed that she answered to the rein.

"Oh, yes, mamma, quite happy," Gwendolen had said on her return to
Diplow. "Not at all disappointed in Ryelands. It is a much finer place
than this--larger in every way. But don't you want some more money?"

"Did you not know that Mr. Grandcourt left me a letter on your
wedding-day? I am to have eight hundred a year. He wishes me to keep
Offendene for the present, while you are at Diplow. But if there were
some pretty cottage near the park at Ryelands we might live there
without much expense, and I should have you most of the year, perhaps."

"We must leave that to Mr. Grandcourt, mamma."

"Oh, certainly. It is exceedingly handsome of him to say that he will
pay the rent for Offendene till June. And we can go on very
well--without any man-servant except Crane, just for out-of-doors. Our
good Merry will stay with us and help me to manage everything. It is
natural that Mr. Grandcourt should wish