f despair that she was a thing caught in a trap; that these
people had her in their power, and that they had tricked and lied to her
and kept her apart from what her girl's heart so cried out to and longed
for. Her father, her mother, her little sister; they had been near her
and had been lied to and sent away.

"You are quite mad, you violent, uncontrolled creature!" cried the
Dowager furiously. "You ought to be put in a straitjacket and drenched
with cold water."

Then the door opened again and Nigel strode in. He was in riding dress
and was breathless and livid with anger. He was in a nice mood to
confront a wife on the verge of screaming hysterics. After a bad half
hour with his steward, who had been talking of impending disasters,
he had heard by chance of Wilson's conflagration and the hundred-pound
cheque. He had galloped home at the top of his horse's speed.

"Here is your wife raving mad," cried out his mother.

Rosalie staggered across the room to him. She held up her hand clenching
the letter and shook it at him.

"My mother and father have been here," she shrieked. My mother has been
ill. They wanted to come to see me. You knew and you kept it from me.
You told my father lies--lies--hideous lies! You said I was away in
Scotland--enjoying myself--when I was here and dying with homesickness.
You made them think I did not care for them--or for New York! You have
killed me! Why did you do such a wicked thing!

He looked at her with glaring eyes. If a man born a gentleman is ever in
the mood to kick his wife to death, as costermongers do, he was in that
mood. He had lost control over himself as completely as she had, and
while she was only a desperate, hysteric girl, he was a violent man.

"I did it because I did not mean to have them here," he said. "I did it
because I won't have them here."

"They shall come," she quavered shrilly in her wildness. "They shall
come to see me. They are my own father and mother, and I will have
them."

He caught her arm in such a grip that she must have thought he would
break it, if she could have thought or felt anything.

"No, you will not have them," he ground forth between his teeth. "You
will do as I order you and learn to behave yourself as a decent married
woman should. You will learn to obey your husband and respect his wishes
and control your devilish American temper."

"They have gone--gone!" wailed Rosalie. "You sent them away! My father,
my mother, my sist