effort to attain the right of sisterhood she would only stammer
the tell-tale words: _she had promised!_ and press her hot cheeks
against mine, I thrust her from me, indignant, and from my affections
for ever. Yet I hold her in my power, I could write to Tanty, put
Rupert on the track.... Nay, I have not fallen so low as to become
Rupert's accomplice yet!

And so the days go on. Between my husband's increasing melancholy, my
own mad regrets, Rupert's watchfulness, Madeleine's absorption and
Sophia's twaddle, my brain reels. I feel sometimes as if I could
scream aloud, as we all sit round the table, and I know that _this_ is
the life that I am doomed to, and that the days may go on, go on thus,
till I am old. Poor Murthering Moll the second! Why even the convent,
where at least I knew nothing, would have been better! No, it is not
possible! Something is still to come to me. Like a bird, my heart
rises within me. I have the right to my life, the right to my
happiness, say what they may.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DAWN OF AN EVENTFUL DAY

Rupert's behaviour at home, since his brother's wedding, had been, as
even Molly was bound to admit to herself, beyond reproach in
tactfulness, quiet dignity, and seeming cheerfulness.

He abdicated from his position of trust at once and without the
smallest reservation; wooed Madeleine with so great a discretion that
her dreamy eyes saw in him only a kind relative; and he treated his
sister-in-law, for all her freaks of bearing to him, with a perfect
gentleness and gentility.

At times Sir Adrian would watch him with great eyes. What meant this
change? the guileless philosopher would ask himself, and wonder if he
had judged his brother too harshly all through life; or if it was his
plain speaking in their last quarrel which had put things in their
true light to him, and awakened some innate generosity of feeling; or
yet if--this with misgiving--it was love for pretty Madeleine that was
working the marvel. If so, how would this proud rebellious nature bear
another failure?

Rupert spoke with unaffected regret about leaving Pulwick, at the same
time, in spite of Molly's curling lip, giving it to be understood that
his removal was only a matter of time.

For the ostensible purpose, indeed, of finding himself another home he
made, in the beginning of March, the second month after his brother's
marriage, several absences which lasted a couple of days or more, and
from which he woul