it of his half-jest. "Shall I tell you more
precisely what 'tis he owes you?"

"Can there be more?" quoth Mr. Caryll, smiling so amiably that he must
have disarmed a Gorgon.

Her ladyship ignored him. "He owes it to you both that you have
estranged him from his father, set up a breach between them that is
never like to be healed. 'Tis what he owes you."

"Does he not owe it, rather, to his abandoned ways?" asked Hortensia, in
a calm, clear voice, bravely giving back her ladyship look for look.

"Abandoned ways?" screamed the countess. "Is't you that speak of
abandoned ways, ye shameless baggage? Faith, ye may be some judge of
them. Ye fooled him into running off with you. 'Twas that began all
this. Just as with your airs and simpers, and prettily-played innocences
you fooled this other, here, into being your champion."

"Madam, you insult me!" Hortensia was on her feet, eyes flashing, cheeks
aflame.

"I am witness to that," said Lord Ostermore, coming in through the
side-entrance.

Mr. Caryll was the only one who had seen him approach. The earl's face
that had wont to be so florid, was now pale and careworn, and he seemed
to have lost flesh during the past month. He turned to her ladyship.

"Out on you!" he said testily, "to chide the poor child so!"

"Poor child!" sneered her ladyship, eyes raised to heaven to invoke its
testimony to this absurdity. "Poor child."

"Let there be an end to it, madam," he said with attempted sternness.
"It is unjust and unreasonable in you."

"If it were that--which it is not--it would be but following the example
that you set me. What are you but unreasonable and unjust--to treat your
son as you are treating him?"

His lordship crimsoned. On the subject of his son he could be angry in
earnest, even with her ladyship, as already we have seen.

"I have no son," he declared, "there is a lewd, drunken, bullying
profligate who bears my name, and who will be Lord Ostermore some day. I
can't strip him of that. But I'll strip him of all else that's mine, God
helping me. I beg, my lady, that you'll let me hear no more of this,
I beg it. Lord Rotherby leaves my house to-day--now that Mr. Caryll is
restored to health. Indeed, he has stayed longer than was necessary. He
leaves to-day. He has my orders, and my servants have orders to see that
he obeys them. I do not wish to see him again--never. Let him go, and
let him be thankful--and be your ladyship thankful, too, since it seems
yo