ate, and her voice will tremble. And I don't know if
I will have strength to hold out," she cried, with a sudden burst of
tears. "I have never struggled or fought for myself. Perhaps I may be a
coward. I may not have the strength. If they are all against me, and no
one to stand by me, perhaps I may be unjust too, and sacrifice him--and
myself."

This burst of almost inaudible passion from a creature so tranquil and
passive took Lady Markland altogether by surprise. Chatty, so soft, so
simple, so yielding, driven by cruel fate into a position so terrible,
feeling everything at stake, not only her happiness but the life already
spoiled and wasted of the man she loved, feeling too that on herself
would depend the decision of all that was to follow, and yet seized by
a prophetical terror, a fear which was tragic, lest her own habit of
submission should still overwhelm all the personal impulse, and sweep
away her very life. The girl's face, moved out of all its gentle
softness into the gravity almost stern which this consciousness brought,
was a strange sight.

"I do not count for much," said Lady Markland. "I cannot expect you to
think much of me, if your own sister, and your brother, and even your
mother, as you fear, are against you: but I will not be against you,
Chatty. So far as I can I will stand by you, if that will do you any
good."

"Oh yes, it will do me good," cried Chatty, clasping her hands; "it does
me good already to talk to you. You know I am not clever, I don't go
deep down into things," she added after a moment. "Minnie always said I
was on the surface: but I never thought until to-day, I never thought--I
have just been going on, supposing it was all right, that Dick could set
it all right. And now it has burst upon me. Perhaps after all mamma will
be on my side, and perhaps you will make Theo----" here she paused
instinctively, and looked at her sister-in-law, feeling in the haste and
rush of her own awakened spirit a sudden insight of which she had not
been capable before.

Lady Markland shook her head. She was a little sad, a little overcast,
not so assured in her gentle dignity, slightly nervous and restless,
which was unlike her. "You must not calculate on that," she said.
"Theo--has his own way of looking at things. It is right he should.
We would not wish him to be influenced by--by any one."

"But you are not--any one."

"No, indeed. I am no one, in that point of view. I am his wife, and
ou