it, but I think that we had better go. You
are very harsh, and it crushes me.'

'I have not meant to be harsh.'

'You say that Felix is seeking for his--prey, and that he is to be
brought here to be near--his prey. What can be more harsh than that? At
any rate, you should remember that I am his mother.'

She expressed her sense of injury very well. Roger began to be ashamed
of himself, and to think that he had spoken unkind words. And yet he
did not know how to recall them. 'If I have hurt you, I regret it
much.'

'Of course you have hurt me. I think I will go in now. How very hard
the world is! I came here thinking to find peace and sunshine, and
there has come a storm at once.'

'You asked me about the Melmottes, and I was obliged to speak. You
cannot think that I meant to offend you.' They walked on in silence
till they had reached the door leading from the garden into the house,
and here he stopped her. 'If I have been over hot with you, let me beg
your pardon,' She smiled and bowed; but her smile was not one of
forgiveness; and then she essayed to pass on into the house. 'Pray do
not speak of going, Lady Carbury.'

'I think I will go to my room now. My head aches so that I can hardly
stand.'

It was late in the afternoon,--about six,--and according to his daily
custom he should have gone round to the offices to see his men as they
came from their work, but he stood still for a few moments on the spot
where Lady Carbury had left him and went slowly across the lawn to the
bridge and there seated himself on the parapet. Could it really be
that she meant to leave his house in anger and to take her daughter
with her? Was it thus that he was to part with the one human being in
the world that he loved? He was a man who thought much of the duties
of hospitality, feeling that a man in his own house was bound to
exercise a courtesy towards his guests sweeter, softer, more gracious
than the world required elsewhere. And of all guests those of his own
name were the best entitled to such courtesy at Carbury. He held the
place in trust for the use of others. But if there were one among all
others to whom the house should be a house of refuge from care, not an
abode of trouble, on whose behalf, were it possible, he would make the
very air softer, and the flowers sweeter than their wont, to whom he
would declare, were such words possible to his tongue, that of him and
of his house, and of all things there, she was the mis