ael and John-James were in the fields, and Phoebe lay on a
plush sofa in the parlour. Ishmael had bought that sofa for her in
Penzance when she admired its glossy crimson curves. She had not been at
all grateful; she had merely told him that he bought it, as he did
everything else for which she expressed a wish, because he wanted to do
everything possible to ensure a healthy and happy child, and there was
enough of truth in her accusation to justify it. Now she lay upon the
sofa, staring at the mahogany arm that ran along one side of it and
wishing that she were dead or that Archelaus would go away and not
torment her with his taunts and his kisses--his whole presence that made
her feel so helpless. While she lay there thus thinking he came in,
walking straight into the hall as of right, whistling carelessly; and
she heard his stick, flung against the wall, go sliding and clattering
down upon the stone flags.

The next moment he was in the room and standing looking down at her with
a smile. She did not move, but lay looking back at him like a small bird
stricken motionless and staring beneath a hawk. Wanda, who was curled up
by her feet, growled softly. What strange twist it was in Archelaus,
what sardonic cruelty, inherited perhaps from the old Squire, that made
him take pleasure in tormenting the helpless Phoebe it would have been
hard to say. Though always latent in him, it may have been waked to
activity by the wound on his head which had left the scar. Some nice
balance may have been overset in his brain, though there was bitterness
enough in his sense of grudge to stimulate him to a perpetual nagging at
this vulnerable part of Ishmael. He had lately discovered a new way to
frighten her; in addition to his passionate urgings of what he called
his love, he vowed that he would not be able to bear his life much
longer, that in losing Cloom he had been sent out to wander the earth a
disappointed man, but in losing her he had lost all that had made his
life worth living. He threatened to kill himself, with so many
picturesque details and so much grim emphasis, that there were moments
when he could almost have deceived himself, let alone poor simple
Phoebe. His feeling for her had been of the most animal even at its
strongest, but he had to the full the primitive instinct for possession;
he had made her his woman, and, though he might have felt a mere blind
jealousy if she had married any other man, to find her taken by I