marriage, if it were a
marriage, was a terrible blow to them. It would have been infinitely
better for them all that, having such a wife, he should have kept her
in Italy. But, as she was here in England, as she was to be
acknowledged,--as far as they knew at present,--it was a fearful thing
that she should be living close to them and not be seen by them. For
some moments after his last announcement they were stricken dumb. He
was standing with his back to the fire, looking at his boots. The
Marchioness was the first to speak. "We may see Popenjoy!" she
exclaimed through her sobs.

"I suppose he can be brought down,--if you care about it."

"Of course we care about it," said Lady Amelia.

"They tell me he is not strong, and I don't suppose they'll let him
come out such weather as this. You'll have to wait. I don't think any
body ought to stir out in this weather. It doesn't suit me, I know.
Such an abominable place as it is I never saw in my life. There is not
a room in the house that is not enough to make a man blow his brains
out."

Lady Sarah could not stand this, nor did she think it right to put up
with the insolence of his manner generally. "If so," she said, "it is a
pity that you came away from Italy."

He turned sharply round and looked at her for an instant before he
answered. And as he did so she remembered the peculiar tyranny of his
eyes,--the tyranny to which, when a boy, he had ever endeavoured to
make her subject, and all others around him. Others had become subject
because he was the Lord Popenjoy of the day, and would be the future
Marquis; but she, though recognising his right to be first in every
thing, had ever rebelled against his usurpation of unauthorized power.
He, too, remembered all this, and almost snarled at her with his eyes.
"I suppose I might stay if I liked, or come back if I liked, without
asking you," he said.

"Certainly."

"But you are the same as ever you were."

"Oh, Brotherton," said the Marchioness, "do not quarrel with us
directly you have come back."

"You may be quite sure, mother, that I shall not take the trouble to
quarrel with any one. It takes two for that work. If I wanted to
quarrel with her or you, I have cause enough."

"I know of none," said Lady Sarah.

"I explained to you my wishes about this house, and you disregarded
them altogether." The old lady looked up at her eldest daughter as
though to say, "There,--that was your sin." "I knew what was bette