ows open on to the
bit of garden, where the trees were already withered and begrimed, that
the air without and her heart within were alike stifling and heavy with
storm. _Something_ must put an end to this oppression, this misery! She
did not know herself. Her whole inner being seemed to her lessened and
degraded by this silent struggle, this fever of the soul, which made
impossible all those serenities and sweetnesses of thought in which her
nature had always lived of old. The fight into which fate had forced her
was destroying her. She was drooping like a plant cut off from all that
nourishes its life.

And yet she never conceived it possible that she should relinquish that
fight. Nay, at times there sprang up in her now a dangerous and
despairing foresight of even worse things in store. In the middle of her
suffering she already began to feel at moments the ascetic's terrible
sense of compensation. What, after all, is the Christian life but
warfare? '_I came not to send peace, but a sword!_'

Yes, in these June days Elsmere's happiness was perhaps nearer wreck
than it had ever been. All strong natures grow restless under such a
pressure as was now weighing on Catherine. Shock and outburst become
inevitable.

So she sat alone this hot afternoon, haunted by presentiments, by vague
terror for herself and him; while the child tottered about her, cooing,
shouting, kissing, and all impulsively, with a ceaseless energy, like
her father.

The outer door opened, and she heard Robert's step, and apparently Mr.
Flaxman's also. There was a hurried subdued word or two in the hall, and
the two entered the room where she was sitting.

Robert came, pressing back the hair from his eyes with a gesture which
with him was the invariable accompaniment of mental trouble. Catherine
sprang up.

'Robert, you look so tired! and how late you are!' Then as she came
nearer to him: 'And your coat--_torn--blood_!'

'There is nothing wrong with _me_, dear,' he said hastily, taking her
hands--'nothing! But it has been an awful afternoon. Flaxman will tell
you. I must go to this place, I suppose, though I hate the thought of
it! Flaxman, will you tell her all about it?' And, loosing his hold, he
went heavily out of the room and upstairs.

'It has been an accident,' said Flaxman gently, coming forward, 'to one
of the men of his class. May we sit down, Mrs. Elsmere? Your husband and
I have gone through a good deal these last two hours.'

He