ought to be at any rate. Do you think, that as she is now she
should be subjected to the cold kindnesses of the ladies of your
family?"

"What right have you to call their kindness cold?"

"Ask yourself. You hear what they say. I do not. You must know exactly
what has been the effect in your mother's house of the scene between me
and your brother at that hotel. I spurned him from me with violence
because he had maligned your wife. I may expect you to forgive me."

"It was very unfortunate."

"I may feel sure that you as a man must exonerate me from blame in that
matter, but I cannot expect your mother to see it in the same light. I
ask you whether they do not regard her as wayward and unmanageable?"

He paused for a reply; and Lord George found himself obliged to say
something. "She should come and show that she is not wayward or
unmanageable."

"But she would be so to them. Without meaning it they would torment
her, and she would be miserable. Do you not know that it would be so?"
He almost seemed to yield. "If you wish her to be happy, come here for
a while. If you will stay here with us for a month, so that this stupid
idea of a quarrel shall be wiped out of people's minds, I will
undertake that she shall then go to Cross Hall. To Manor Cross she
cannot go while the Marquis is its ostensible master."

Lord George was very far from being prepared to yield in this way. He
had thought that his wife in her present condition would have been sure
to obey him, and had even ventured to hope that the Dean would make no
further objection. "I don't think that this is the place for her," he
said. "Wherever I am she should be with me."

"Then come here, and it will be all right," said the Dean.

"I don't think that I can do that."

"If you are anxious for her health you will." A few minutes ago the
Dean had been very stout in his assurances that everything was well
with his daughter, but he was by no means unwilling to take advantage
of her interesting situation to forward his own views. "I certainly
cannot say that she ought to go to Cross Hall at present. She would be
wretched there. Ask yourself."

"Why should she be wretched?"

"Ask yourself. You had promised her that you would come here. Does not
the very fact of your declining to keep that promise declare that you
are dissatisfied with her conduct, and with mine?" Lord George was
dissatisfied with his wife's conduct and with the Dean's, but at the
present mom