it was finished, he'd have me thrown out--me that owned the whole place;
and there wasn't a man that would lend me a pistol! 'Rescue!' You'd
better rescue him from me, you palm-laden dove, for I'll shoot him, I
will! I'll kill that dog; and he knows it. He can bluster in a crowd,
but he'll hide now! He's a coward and--"

"He came home with me; he brought me home last night!" Her voice rang
out in the room like that of some other person, and she hardly knew that
it was herself who spoke.

"You lie!" he screamed, and fell back from her, his face working as
though under the dominance of some physical disorder, the flesh of it
plastic beyond conception, so that she cried out and covered her face
with her arm. "You lie! I saw you at the hedge with Crailey Gray, though
you thought I didn't. What do you want to lie like that for? Vanrevel
didn't even speak to you. I asked Madrillon. You lie!"

He choked upon the words; a racking cough shook him from head to foot;
he staggered back and dropped upon her overturned chair, his arms
beating the table in front of him, his head jerking spasmodically
backward and forward as he gasped for breath.

"Ring the bell," he panted thickly, with an incoherent gesture. "Nelson
knows. Ring!"

Nelson evidently knew. He brought brandy and water from the sideboard
with no stinting hand, and within ten minutes Mr. Carewe was in his
accustomed seat, competent to finish his breakfast. In solitude,
however, he sat, and no one guessed his thoughts.

For Miss Betty had fled to her own room, and had bolted the door. She
lay upon the bed, shuddering and shivering with nausea and cold,
though the day was warm. Then, like a hot pain in her breast, came a
homesickness for St. Mary's, and the flood-tide of tears, as she thought
of the quiet convent in the sunshine over to the west, the peace of it,
and the goodness of everybody there.

"Sister Cecilia!" Her shoulders shook with the great sob that followed
this name, dearest to her in the world, convulsively whispered to the
pil-low "Dear Sister Cecilia!" She patted the white pillow with her
hand, as though it were the cool cheek against which she yearned to lay
her own. "Ah, you would know--you would know!" With the thought of the
serene face of the good Sister, and of the kind arms that would have
gone round her in her trouble, her sobbing grew loud and uncontrollable.
But she would not have her father hear it, and buried her face deep in
the pillow.