it could not be helped. Once it had seemed very
possible that she would go with him to Washington, but that was before
his mother had talked to him upon the subject. Since then the fiat had
gone forth, and thinking this the time to declare it, Richard said at
last, "Put down your finery, Ethelyn, and come stand by me while I say
something to you."

His voice and manner startled Ethelyn, but did not prepare her for what
followed after she had "dropped her finery" and was standing by
her husband.

"Ethelyn," he began, and his eyes did not move from the blazing fire,
"it is time we came to an understanding about Washington. I have talked
with mother, whose age certainly entitles her opinion to some
consideration, and she thinks that for you to go to Washington this
winter would not only be improper, but also endanger your life;
consequently, I hope you will readily see the propriety of remaining
quietly at home where mother can care for you, and see that you are not
at all imprudent. It would break my heart if anything happened to my
darling wife, or--" he finished the sentence in a whisper, for he was
not yet accustomed to speaking of the great hope he had in expectancy.

He was looking at Ethelyn now, and the expression of her face startled
and terrified him, it was so strange and terrible.

"Not go to Washington!" and her livid lips quivered with passion, while
her eyes burned like coals of fire. "I stay here all this long, dreary
winter with your mother! Never, Richard, never! I'll die before I'll do
that. It is all--" she did not finish the sentence, for she would not
say, "It is all I married you for"; she was too much afraid of Richard
for that, and so she hesitated, but looked at him intently to see if he
was in earnest.

She knew he was at last--knew that neither tears, nor reproaches, nor
bitter scorn could avail to carry her point, for she tried them all,
even to violent hysterics, which brought Mrs. Markham, senior, into the
field and made the matter ten times worse. Had she stayed away Richard
might have yielded, for he was frightened at the storm he had invoked;
but Richard was passive in his mother's hands, and listened complacently
while in stronger, plainer language than he had used she repeated in
substance all he had said about the impropriety of Ethelyn's mingling
with the gay throng at Washington. Immodesty, Mrs. Markham called it,
with sundry reflections upon the time when she was young, and wha