ook ahead.

As soon as Henriette was visible, I went up to her room to talk
matters over. She was very humble and apologetic, and disarmed me if I
had intended to take her to task for all the trouble and anxiety she
had caused us. But when I magnanimously said, "I am not going to scold
you," she was in my arms at once.

"Scold me! I should think not! I have been scolded quite enough these
last twenty-four hours. I never met a man I disliked so much as your
fine friend, that Colonel Annesley, the rudest, most presuming,
overbearing wretch. He talked to me and ordered me about as if I was
still in the schoolroom, he actually dared to find fault with my
actions, and dictated to me what I should do next. I--I--"

"Did it, Henriette? Like a lamb, eh? That's a way he has, my dear," I
laughed.

"I don't envy you one bit, Claire. You'll be a miserable woman. You
hate to give way, and he'll make you. He'll tame you, and lord it over
you, he'll be a hard, a cruel master, for all he thinks so much of you
now."

"And does he?" What sweeter music in a woman's ear than to be told of
the sway she exercises over the man of her choice?

"Why, of course, he thinks all the world of you. He would say nothing,
decide nothing until you had been consulted. Your word is law to him,
your name always on his lips. You know of your latest conquest, I
suppose?"

"There are things one does not care to discuss, my dear, even with
one's sister," I answered, rather coldly. I was a little hurt by her
tone and manner, although what she told me gave me exquisite pleasure.

"Come, come," Henriette rallied me. "Make a clean breast of it.
Confess that you are over head and ears in love with your Colonel. Why
not? You are free to choose, I was not," and her eyes filled with
tears at the sad shipwreck of her married life.

I strove hard to calm her, to console her, pointing to her little
Ralph, and promising her a future of happiness with her child.

"If I am allowed to keep him, yes. But how can I keep him after that
wicked decision of the Court, and with such a persistent enemy as
Ralph Blackadder? For the moment we are safe, but by and by he will
come back, he will leave no stone unturned until he finds me, and I
shall lose my darling for ever."

The hopelessness of evading pursuit for any time sorely oppressed me,
too. There seemed no safety but in keeping continually on the move, in
running to and fro and changing our hiding place so soon as