husband's loud breathing.

He did not speak for two or three minutes, but breathed like a man who
had been running, and moved violently in the carriage as if to keep
still were intolerable to him. The window next to him was up. He let it
down. Then he turned right round to his wife, who was leaning back in
her corner wrapped up in her black cloak.

"With the Duke sittin' there!" he said in a loud voice. "With the Duke
sittin' there!"

There was a sound of outrage in the voice.

"Didn't I kick that sweep out of the house?" he added. "Didn't I?"

"I believe you asked Mr. Carey not to call anymore."

Lady Holme's voice had no excitement in it.

"Asked him! I--"

"Don't make such a noise, Fritz. The men will hear you."

"I told him if he ever came again I'd have him put out."

"Well, he never has come again."

"What d'you mean by speakin' to him? What d'you mean by it?"

Lady Holme knew that her husband was a thoroughly conventional man, and,
like all conventional men, had a horror of a public scene in which any
woman belonging to him was mixed up. Such a scene alone was quite enough
to rouse his wrath. But there was in his present anger something deeper,
more brutal, than any rage caused by a breach of the conventions. His
jealousy was stirred.

"He didn't speak to you. You spoke to him."

Lady Holme did not deny it.

"I heard every word you said," continued Lord Holme, beginning to
breathe hard again. "I--I--"

Lady Holme felt that he was longing to strike her, that if he had been
the same man, but a collier or a labourer, born in another class of
life, he would not have hesitated to beat her. The tradition in which he
had been brought up controlled him. But she knew that if he could have
beaten her he would have hated her less, that his sense of bitter wrong
would have at once diminished. In self-control it grew. The spark rose
to a flame.

"You're a damned shameful woman!" he said.

The brougham drew up softly before their house. Lord Holme, who was
seated on the side next the house, got out first. He did not wait on the
pavement to assist his wife, but walked up the steps, opened the door,
and went into the hall. Lady Holme followed. She saw her husband, with
the light behind him, standing with his hand on the handle of the hall
door. For an instant she thought that he was going to shut her out. He
actually pushed the door till the light was almost hidden. Then he flung
it open with a bang, threw