justified in interfering?"

"In interfering with mere command, never."

"Not if I saw you going to destruction?"

She smiled haughtily.

"When it comes to that, we'll discuss the question anew. But I see that
you think it possible. Evidently I have given proof of some dangerous
weakness. Tell me what it is, and I shall understand you better."

"I'm afraid all this talk leads to nothing. You claim an independence
which will make it very difficult for us to live on the old terms."

"I claim nothing more than your own theories have always granted."

"Then practice shows that the theories are untenable, as in many
another case."

"You refuse me the right to think for myself."

"In some things, yes. Because, as I said before, you haven't experience
enough to go upon."

Cecily cast down her eyes. She forced herself to keep silence until
that rush of indignant rebellion had gone by. Reuben looked at her
askance.

"If you still loved me as you once did," he said, in a lower voice,
"this would be no hardship. Indeed, I should never have had to utter
such words."

"I still do love you," she answered, very quietly. "If I did not, I
should revolt against your claim. But it is too certain that we no
longer live on the old terms."

They avoided each other's eyes, and after a long silence left the room
without again speaking.

CHAPTER IV

THE DENYERS IN ENGLAND

"There!" said Mrs. Denyer, laying money on the table. "There are your
wages, up to the end of April--notwithstanding your impertinence to me
this morning, you see. Once more I forgive you. And new get on with
your work, and let us have no more unpleasantness."

It was in the back parlour of a small house at Hampstead, a room
scantily furnished and not remarkably clean. Mrs. Denyer sat at the
table, some loose papers before her. She was in mourning, but still
fresh of complexion, and a trifle stouter than when she lived at
Naples, two years and a half ago. Her words were addressed to a
domestic (most plainly, of all work), who without ceremony gathered the
coins up in both her hands, counted them, and then said with decision:

"Now I'm goin', mum."

"Going? Indeed you are not, my girl! You don't leave this house without
the due notice."

"Notice or no notice, I'm a-goin'," said the other, firmly. "I never
thought to a' got even this much, an' now I've got it, I'm a-goin'.
It's wore me out, has this 'ouse; what with--"

The conflict lasted fo