u mean, you little minx?" he asked. "Why do you
say I killed her, because I did what I thought the best for all of us?
No woman had a better husband, as I am sure she acknowledges in heaven
to-day."

"I don't know what Mother thinks in heaven, if there is one for her, as
there ought to be. But I do know what I think on earth," remarked the
burning Isobel.

"And I know what I think also," shouted her enraged parent, dashing the
new, crape-covered hat on to the table in front of him, "and it is that
the further you and I are apart from each other, the better we are
likely to get on."

"I agree with you, Father."

"Look here, Isobel, you said that your uncle Edgar, who has been
appointed Minister to Mexico, offered to take you with him to be a
companion to his daughter, your cousin Emily. Well, you can go if you
like. I'll pay the shot and shut up this house for a while. I'm sick of
the cursed place, and can get to Harwich just as well from London.
Write and make the arrangements, for one year, no more. By that time
your temper may have improved," he added with an ugly sneer.

"Thank you, Father, I will."

He stared at her for a little while. She met his gaze unflinchingly,
and in the end it was not her eyes that dropped. Then with a smothered
exclamation he stamped out of the room, kicking Isobel's little terrier
out of the path with his elephantine foot. The poor beast, of which she
was very fond, limped to her whining, for it was much hurt. She took it
in her arms and kissed it, weeping tears of wrath and pity.

"I wonder what Godfrey would say about the fifth Commandment if he had
been here this afternoon, you poor thing," she whispered to the
whimpering dog, which was licking its hanging leg. "There is no God. If
there had been He would not have given me such a father, or my mother
such a husband."

Then still carrying the injured terrier, she went out and glided
through the darkness to her mother's grave in the neighbouring
churchyard. The sextons had done their work, and the raw, brown earth
of the grave, mixed with bits of decayed coffins and fragments of
perished human bones, was covered with hot-house flowers. Among these
lay a gorgeous wreath of white and purple orchids, to which was tied a
card whereon was written: "To my darling wife, from her bereaved
husband, John Blake."

Isobel lifted the wreath from its place of honour and threw it over the
the churchyard wall. Then she wept and wept as though