re lashed and tormented by the blusterous wind, and the
low sky was darkly gray, the captain's temper suddenly broke out.

"My dear Pamela, is it possible that these whimpering little speeches
of yours mean jealousy?" he asked, looking at her severely from under
bent brows.

"I'm sure I never said that I was jealous," faltered Pamela, stirring
her tea with a nervous movement of her thin white band.

"Of course not; no woman cares to describe herself in plain words as an
idiot; but of late you have favoured me with a good many imbecile
remarks, which all seem to tend one way. You are hurt and wounded when
I am decently civil to the women I meet in society. Is that sensible or
reasonable, in a woman of your age and experience?"

"You used not to taunt me with my age before we were married, Conrad."

"Do I taunt you with it now? I only say that a woman of forty,"--Mrs.
Winstanley shuddered--"ought to have more sense than a girl of
eighteen; and that a woman who had had twenty years' experience of
well-bred society ought not to put on the silly jealousies of a
school-girl trying to provoke a quarrel with her first lover."

"It is all very well to pretend to think me weak and foolish, Conrad.
Yes, I know I am weak, ridiculously weak, in loving you as intensely as
I do. But I cannot help that. It is my nature to cling to others, as
the ivy clings to the oak. I would have clung to Violet, if she had
been more loving and lovable. But you cannot deny that your conduct to
Lady Ellangowan yesterday afternoon was calculated to make any wife
unhappy."

"If a wife is to be unhappy because her husband talks to another woman
about her horses and her gardens, I suppose I gave you sufficient cause
for misery," answered the Captain sneeringly. "I can declare that Lady
Ellangowan and I were talking of nothing more sentimental."

"Oh, Conrad, it is not _what_ you talked about, though your voice was
so subdued that it was impossible for anyone to know what you were
saying----"

"Except Lady Ellangowan."

"It was your manner. The way you bent over her, your earnest
expression."

"Would you have had me stand three yards off and bawl at the lady? Or
am I bound to assume that bored and vacuous countenance which some
young men consider good form? Come, my dear Pamela, pray let us be
reasonable. Here are you and I settled for life beside the domestic
hearth. We have no children. We are not particularly well off--it will
be as much as