ormation was disagreeable in the extreme, for it made certain
plans, which her fertile brain had begun to weave as soon as she had
learned that her brother had returned without his wife, all the more
complicated, if not well-nigh impossible.

"It was a great trial for me to return without her," Sir William went on,
with a regretful sigh, "but your summons was so very imperative that I
felt obliged to do so. My darling bore it very bravely, however; she
regarded it as my duty to hasten to my mother, even though she would be
left alone, a stranger in a great city, and at such a critical time."

"Of course it was your duty to return to our mother," Lady Linton
responded emphatically, as if the young wife away upon the other side of
the Atlantic was not worthy of consideration. "And," she added, flashing a
look of defiance at her companion, "I am free to confess to a feeling of
relief that you had to come alone--"

"Miriam, I--"

"Hear me out, if you please," she interposed. "Mamma's heart has been
nearly broken at the thought of this ill-assorted marriage, and I believe
the excitement and grief would have killed her outright, if you had
brought her," with a withering glance at Virgie's picture, "to Heathdale
to reign as mistress."

Sir William was tried almost beyond endurance. It was more than a minute
before he could control himself sufficiently to speak, after his sister's
insulting remarks regarding his marriage.

"Miriam," he at length said, in a voice that made her quail in spite of
her effrontery, "you will please never speak like this again; it is, both
to my wife and me, an insult which I will not tolerate. Virgie is a lady
in every sense of the word; even my critical mother could pick no flaw in
her were she to see her, and the moment that I am at liberty to do so I
shall return to the United States and bring my darling back with me. And
let me here repeat what I said a while ago--I expect and demand that she
be received with all proper respect by the entire household."

"The household knows nothing of your marriage."

"What!" cried the young baronet, astonished.

"No one, save mamma and I, knows anything of this--this alliance."

"By whose authority have you kept such a matter secret?" Sir William
demanded, in great wrath.

"We--we thought it best," faltered his sister, shrinking beneath his
anger--she had never seen him so aroused before. "Mamma was so unhappy,
and I was so--so unreconciled, that we