all. Unjust,
ignorant, foolish man! He does not remember that the last
instructions he really gave me, were to bid me see Colonel Osborne.
Take my boy away! Yes. Of course, I am a woman and must suffer. I
will write to Colonel Osborne, and will tell him the truth, and will
send my letter to Louis. He shall know how he has ill-treated me! I
will not take a penny of his money;--not a penny. Maintain you! I
believe he thinks that we are beggars. Leave this house because of my
conduct! What can Mrs. Stanbury have said? What can any of them have
said? I will demand to be told. Free himself from the connection!
Oh, Nora, Nora! that it should come to this!--that I should be thus
threatened, who have been as innocent as a baby! If it were not for
my child, I think that I should destroy myself!"

Nora said what she could to comfort her sister, insisting chiefly on
the promise that the child should not be taken away. There was no
doubt as to the husband's power in the mind of either of them; and
though, as regarded herself, Mrs. Trevelyan would have defied her
husband, let his power be what it might, yet she acknowledged to
herself that she was in some degree restrained by the fear that she
would find herself deprived of her only comfort.

"We must just go where he bids us,--till papa comes," said Nora.

"And when papa is here, what help will there be then? He will not let
me go back to the islands,--with my boy. For myself I might die, or
get out of his way anywhere. I can see that. Priscilla Stanbury is
right when she says that no woman should trust herself to any man.
Disgraced! That I should live to be told by my husband that I had
disgraced him,--by a lover!"

There was some sort of agreement made between the two sisters as to
the manner in which Priscilla should be interrogated respecting the
sentence of banishment which had been passed. They both agreed that
it would be useless to make inquiry of Mrs. Stanbury. If anything had
really been said to justify the statement made in Mr. Trevelyan's
letter, it must have come from Priscilla, and have reached Trevelyan
through Priscilla's brother. They, both of them, had sufficiently
learned the ways of the house to be sure that Mrs. Stanbury had not
been the person active in the matter. They went down, therefore,
together, and found Priscilla seated at her desk in the parlour.
Mrs. Stanbury was also in the room, and it had been presumed between
the sisters that the interrogat