lf go before
you? Never! The mater herself feels it. You are as different to any of
us as if you came from Mars!"

"But you knew that always. You used to tell me that was what you
liked about me," I said, wearily. "I cannot change my nature any more
than--than Amelia can hers."

"Why not, pray?"

"Have you never thought," I said, driven at last to defend myself,
"that there may be a side in the question for me also? I feel it as
badly as you do--your all being different to me."

He stopped in his angry walk and looked at me. This idea was one of
complete newness to him.

"Well, you'd better get out of it and change, for we sha'n't," he
said, at last. "You owe everything to me. You would have been in the
gutter now if I had not had the generosity to marry you."

I did not answer, but I suppose my eyes spoke, for he came close up to
me and shook his fist in my face.

"I'll break that proud spirit of yours--see if I don't!" he
roared--"daring to look at me like that! What good are you to me, I
should like to know? You do not have a child, and, of all things, I
want an heir!"

A low growl came from the hearth-rug, where Roy had been lying, and
the dear dog rose and came to my side. I was afraid he would fly at
Augustus, shaking his fist as if he was going to strike me. I put my
hand on Roy's soft, black head and held his collar.

In a moment Augustus turned round and rushed to the door.

"I'll have that dog poisoned," he said, as he fled from the room.

I took up a volume of La Rochefoucauld, which was lying on the table
near--grandmamma's copy--and I chanced to open it at this maxim:

"_On n'est jamais si heureux ni si malheureux qu'on s'imagine._"

About happiness I do not know, but for the rest--well, I must tell
myself that to feel miserable is only foolish imagination, when I have
a fire, and food, and a diamond necklace, and three yards of pearls,
and a carriage with prune-and-scarlet servants, and a boudoir with
mustard-silk walls, and--and numbers of other things.

Roy put his nose into my hand.

"Why did we not go on the long journey with grandmamma?" I said
to him. And then I remembered that it is ridiculous to be morbid
and dramatic, and so I rang for my maid--a dour Scotchwoman whom
I like--and told her to bring my out-door things here to the
boudoir-fire. And soon Roy and I were a mile from the house.

Lady Tilchester has been in Scotland almost ever since we spent our
four days at Harley.