s cold, heavy dignity, and ve'y certain that
the child must marry him--so certain that she woke up one day and
found that she had done it. And learned that she did not love him.

"There was a boy cousin. He was reckless, I reckon; and she was
ve'y unhappy; and one night he found her crying in the garden; and
there was a ve'y painful scene, and she let him kiss the hem of her
petticoat on his promise to go away fo' ever. And--Colonel Arran
caught him on his knees, with the lace to his lips--and the child
wife crying. . . . He neither asked nor accepted satisfaction; he
threatened the--_law_! And that settled him with her, I reckon,
and she demanded her freedom, and he refused, and she took it.

"Then she did a ve'y childish thing; she married the boy--or
supposed she did----"

Celia's violet eyes grew dark with wrath:

"And Colonel Arran went into co't with his lawyers and his
witnesses and had the divorce set aside--and publicly made this
silly child her lover's mistress, and their child nameless! That
was the justice that the law rendered Colonel Arran. And now you
know why I hate him--and shall always hate and despise him."

Ailsa's head was all awhirl; lips parted, she stared at Celia in
stunned silence, making as yet no effort to reconcile the memory of
the man she knew with this cold, merciless, passionless portrait.

Nor did the suspicion occur to her that there could be the
slightest connection between her sister-in-law's contempt for
Colonel Arran and Berkley's implacable enmity.

All the while, too, her clearer sense of right and justice cried
out in dumb protest against the injury done to the man who had been
her friend, and her parents' friend--kind, considerate, loyal,
impartially just in all his dealings with her and with the world,
as far as she had ever known.

From Celia's own showing the abstract right and justice of the
matter had been on his side; no sane civilisation could tolerate
the code that Celia cited. The day of private vengeance was over;
the era of duelling was past in the North--was passing in the
South. And, knowing Colonel Arran, she knew also that twenty odd
years ago his refusal to challenge had required a higher form of
courage than to face the fire of a foolish boy's pistol.

And now, collecting her disordered thoughts, she began to
understand what part emotion and impulse had played in the painful
drama--how youthful ignorance and false sentiment had combined to