ter so cold that it seemed burning hot! Sophistry! In a plain
man like himself! He had always connected the word with Felix. He
looked at her, realizing suddenly that the association of his brother's
family with the outrage on Malloring's estate was probably even nearer
than he had feared.

"Look here, Kirsteen!" he said, uttering the unlikely name with
resolution, for, after all, she was his sister-in-law: "Did this fellow
set fire to Malloring's ricks?"

He was aware of a queer flash, a quiver, a something all over her face,
which passed at once back to its intent gravity.

"We have no reason to suppose so. But tyranny produces revenge, as you
know."

Stanley shrugged his shoulders. "It's not my business to go into the
rights and wrongs of what's been done. But, as a man of the world and a
relative, I do ask you to look after your youngsters and see they don't
get into a mess. They're an inflammable young couple--young blood, you
know!"

Having made this speech, Stanley looked down, with a feeling that it
would give her more chance.

"You are very kind," he heard her saying in that quiet, faintly lisping
voice; "but there are certain principles involved."

And, suddenly, his curious fear of this woman took shape. Principles! He
had unconsciously been waiting for that word, than which none was more
like a red rag to him.

"What principles can possibly be involved in going against the law?"

"And where the law is unjust?"

Stanley was startled, but he said: "Remember that your principles, as you
call them, may hurt other people besides yourself; Tod and your children
most of all. How is the law unjust, may I ask?"

She had been sitting at the table opposite, but she got up now and went
to the hearth. For a woman of forty-two--as he supposed she would
be--she was extraordinarily lithe, and her eyes, fixed on him from under
those twitching, wavy brows, had a curious glow in their darkness. The
few silver threads in the mass of her over-fine black hair seemed to give
it extra vitality. The whole of her had a sort of intensity that made
him profoundly uncomfortable. And he thought suddenly: 'Poor old Tod!
Fancy having to go to bed with that woman!'

Without raising her voice, she began answering his question.

"These poor people have no means of setting law in motion, no means of
choosing where and how they will live, no means of doing anything except
just what they are told; the Mallorings hav