iumphs in fact if not
in appearance. Maurice Frere, though his wife obeyed him, knew that he
was inferior to her, and was afraid of the statue he had created. She
was ice, but it was the artificial ice that chemists make in the midst
of a furnace. Her coldness was at once her strength and her weakness.
When she chilled him, she commanded him.

Unwitting of the thoughts that possessed his guest, Frere chatted
amicably. North said little, but drank a good deal. The wine, however,
rendered him silent, instead of talkative. He drank that he might forget
unpleasant memories, and drank without accomplishing his object. When
the pair proceeded to the room where Mrs. Frere awaited them, Frere was
boisterously good-humoured, North silently misanthropic.

"Sing something, Sylvia!" said Frere, with the ease of possession, as
one who should say to a living musical-box, "Play something."

"Oh, Mr. North doesn't care for music, and I'm not inclined to sing.
Singing seems out of place here."

"Nonsense," said Frere. "Why should it be more out of place here than
anywhere else?"

"Mrs. Frere means that mirth is in a manner unsuited to these melancholy
surroundings," said North, out of his keener sense.

"Melancholy surroundings!" cried Frere, staring in turn at the piano,
the ottomans, and the looking-glass. "Well, the house isn't as good as
the one in Sydney, but it's comfortable enough."

"You don't understand me, Maurice," said Sylvia. "This place is very
gloomy to me. The thought of the unhappy men who are ironed and chained
all about us makes me miserable."

"What stuff!" said Frere, now thoroughly roused. "The ruffians deserve
all they get and more. Why should you make yourself wretched about
them?"

"Poor men! How do we know the strength of their temptation, the
bitterness of their repentance?"

"Evil-doers earn their punishment," says North, in a hard voice, and
taking up a book suddenly. "They must learn to bear it. No repentance
can undo their sin."

"But surely there is mercy for the worst of evil-doers," urged Sylvia,
gently.

North seemed disinclined or unable to reply, and nodded only.

"Mercy!" cried Frere. "I am not here to be merciful; I am here to keep
these scoundrels in order, and by the Lord that made me, I'll do it!"

"Maurice, do not talk like that. Think how slight an accident might
have made any one of us like one of these men. What is the matter, Mr.
North?"

Mr. North has suddenly turned pa