y; nay, she had not judged
him, but had given way to a wicked impulse, without leaving herself
a moment to view the case. Did he not understand better than she
what measures were necessary to the success of his most difficult
undertaking? And then was it certain that expulsion meant ruin to the
Rendals? Richard would insist on the letter of the regulations, just, as
he said, for the example's sake; but of course he would see that the man
was put in the way of getting new employment and did not suffer in the
meantime. In the morning she made atonement to her husband.

'I was wrong in annoying you yesterday,' she said as she walked with him
from the house to the garden gate. 'In such things you are far better
able to judge. You won't let it trouble you?'

It was a form of asceticism; Adela had a joy in humbling herself and
crushing her rebel instincts. She even raised her eyes to interrogate
him. On Richard's face was an uneasy smile, a look of puzzled
reflection. It gratified him intensely to hear such words, yet he could
not hear them without the suspicions of a vulgar nature brought in
contact with nobleness.

'Well, yes,' he replied, 'I think you were a bit too hasty: you're not
practical, you see. It wants a practical man to manage those kind of
things.'

The reply was not such as completes the blessedness of pure submission.
Adela averted her eyes. Another woman would perchance have sought
to assure herself that she was right in crediting him with private
benevolence to the family he was compelled to visit so severely. Such
a question Adela could not ask. It would have been to betray doubt; she
imagined a replying glance which would shame her. To love, to honour, to
obey:--many times daily she repeated to herself that threefold vow, and
hitherto the first article had most occupied her striving heart. But she
must not neglect the second; perhaps it came first in natural order.

At the gate Richard nodded to her kindly.

'Good-bye. Be a good girl.'

What was it that caused a painful flutter at her heart as he spoke so?
She did not answer, but watched him for a few moments as he walked away.

Did _he_ love _her_? The question which she had not asked herself for a
long time came of that heart-tremor. She had been living so unnatural
a life for a newly wedded woman, a life in which the intellect and the
moral faculties held morbid predominance. 'Be a good girl.' How was it
that the simple phrase touched her to e