ngth, near the middle of the month, at the height of the hunting
season, Philip Dubarry arrived. But the eager welcome of his wife was
met with coldness and petulance, that wounded and enraged her. She gave
way to a storm of grief and fury. She wept and raved and tore her hair,
as was her way when fiercely excited. But now he had not the least
patience with her, or the least mercy on her. He had ceased to love her
and to want her, and so, in acting out his selfish and demoniac nature,
he did not hesitate to treat her with cruel scorn and ignominy. He told
her that she was not his wife, and never had been so. He called her ill
names, and bade her pack up and go, he cared not where, so it was out of
his sight, for he hated her; and out of his house also, for she
dishonored it; and that, after being repaired and refurnished, it must
also be purified of _her_ presence, before he could bring into it the
fair maiden whom he was about to make his wife.

"Then all her fury suddenly subsided, and she became calm and resolute
unto death. She assured him that she never would leave the house; that
she was his wife, and the house's mistress; and she had the right to
remain, and would remain. Whereupon he broke out into furious oaths,
swearing that if she did not go, he would put her out by force. Then she
answered, in these memorable words, that have come down to us in
tradition:

"'My body you may thrust forth from my home, but my spirit never! Living
or dead, in the flesh or the spirit, I will stay in this house as long
as its walls shall stand! Nay, though you were to pull this house down
to eject me, in the flesh or the spirit, I would enter in and possess
the next house you should build! And should you venture to bring here,
or there, a bride to supplant me, in the flesh or the spirit I will
blast and destroy her. So help me the gods of my people.'

"For a moment the ruthless and dauntless man stood appalled by the awful
spirit he had raised in that slight form. But when he did recover
himself it was to fall into a transport of fury, in which he seized the
girl and hurled her violently through the open window. Fortunately they
were on the ground floor, so the fall was not great, and she was,
besides, light in form and agile as a cat. She fell on her hands and
feet upon a thick carpet of the dead leaves that strewed the lawn.

"For a moment she lay where she had fallen, breathless from the shock;
then she lifted herself slowl