can't see
that you did anything blameworthy; it seems to me that it was your duty
to try and help Annie, and if it turned out unfortunately, that can't be
helped. You oughtn't to think so much of what father says in his anger;
I believe he hardly knows what he does say. Don't take it so much to
heart, mother.'

'I've tried my best, Marian,' sobbed the poor woman, who felt that even
her child's sympathy could not be perfect, owing to the distance put
between them by Marian's education and refined sensibilities. 'I've
always thought it wasn't right to talk to you about such things, but
he's been too hard with me to-day.'

'I think it was better you should tell me. It can't go on like this; I
feel that just as you do. I must tell father that he is making our lives
a burden to us.'

'Oh, you mustn't speak to him like that, Marian! I wouldn't for anything
make unkindness between you and your father; that would be the worst
thing I'd done yet. I'd rather go away and work for my own living than
make trouble between you and him.'

'It isn't you who make trouble; it's father. I ought to have spoken
to him before this; I had no right to stand by and see how much you
suffered from his ill-temper.'

The longer they talked, the firmer grew Marian's resolve to front her
father's tyrannous ill-humour, and in one way or another to change the
intolerable state of things. She had been weak to hold her peace so
long; at her age it was a simple duty to interfere when her mother
was treated with such flagrant injustice. Her father's behaviour was
unworthy of a thinking man, and he must be made to feel that.

Yule did not return. Dinner was delayed for half an hour, then Marian
declared that they would wait no longer. They two made a sorry meal, and
afterwards went together into the sitting-room. At eight o'clock they
heard the front door open, and Yule's footstep in the passage. Marian
rose.

'Don't speak till to-morrow!' whispered her mother, catching at the
girl's arm. 'Let it be till to-morrow, Marian!'

'I must speak! We can't live in this terror.'

She reached the study just as her father was closing the door behind
him. Yule, seeing her enter, glared with bloodshot eyes; shame and
sullen anger were blended on his countenance.

'Will you tell me what is wrong, father?' Marian asked, in a voice which
betrayed her nervous suffering, yet indicated the resolve with which she
had come.

'I am not at all disposed to talk of th