ing greeting.

"Rather like my lady before she was my lady," he continued, pleasantly,
as his eyes roved over the room, over its furniture, over us.

There was power--a horrible kind of strength and vitality in that
figure--a crushing impression of his potency to make one miserable,
conveyed in the strong, rasping voice. Quite a different Sir Peter
from my erstwhile wooer. He was a masculine, strong, planning creature,
whose force of will was able to crush that of my sister as easily as
her forefinger might crush a troublesome midge. He was not blind or
driveling; he could reason, plot, argue, concoct a systematic plan for
revenge, and work it out fully and in detail; he was able at once to
grasp the broadest bearing and the minute details of a position, and to
act upon their intimations with crushing accuracy. He was calm, decided,
keen, and all in a certain small, bounded, positive way which made him
all the more efficient as a ruling factor in this social sphere, where
small, bounded, positive strength, without keen sympathies save in the
one direction--self--and without idea of generosity, save with regard to
its own merits, pays better than a higher kind of strength--better than
the strength of Joan of Arc, or St. Stephen, or Christ.

This was the real Sir Peter, and before the revelation I stood aghast.
And that look in Adelaide's eyes, that tone in her voice, that
restrained spring in her movements, would have been rebellion,
revolution, but in the act of breaking forth it became--fear. She had
been outwitted, most thoroughly and completely. She had got a jailer and
a prison. She feared the former, and every tradition of her life bade
her remain in the latter.

Sir Peter, pleasantly exhilarated by my confusion and my lady's sullen
silence, proceeded with an agreeable smile:

"Are you never coming down-stairs, madame? I have been deprived long
enough of the delights of your society. Come down! I want you to read to
me."

"I am engaged, as you may see," she answered in a low voice of
opposition.

"Then the engagement must be deferred. There is a great deal of reading
to do. There is the 'Times' for a week."

"I hate the 'Times,' and I don't understand it."

"So much the more reason why you should learn to do so. In half an
hour," said Sir Peter, consulting his watch, "I shall be ready, or say
in quarter of an hour."

"Absurd! I can not be ready in quarter of an hour. Where is Mr.
Arkwright?"

"What i