e must depart from Fieldhead
the instant it came. Though half frightened out of his wits, he declared
he would not. Repeating the former order, I added a commission to fetch
a constable. I said, 'You _shall_ go, by fair means or foul.'

"He threatened prosecution; I cared for nothing. I had stood over him
once before, not quite so fiercely as now, but full as austerely. It was
one night when burglars attempted the house at Sympson Grove, and in his
wretched cowardice he would have given a vain alarm, without daring to
offer defence. I had then been obliged to protect his family and his
abode by mastering himself--and I had succeeded. I now remained with him
till the chaise came. I marshalled him to it, he scolding all the way.
He was terribly bewildered, as well as enraged. He would have resisted
me, but knew not how. He called for his wife and daughters to come. I
said they should follow him as soon as they could prepare. The smoke,
the fume, the fret of his demeanour was inexpressible, but it was a fury
incapable of producing a deed. That man, properly handled, must ever
remain impotent. I know he will never touch me with the law. I know his
wife, over whom he tyrannizes in trifles, guides him in matters of
importance. I have long since earned her undying mother's gratitude by
my devotion to her boy. In some of Henry's ailments I have nursed
him--better, she said, than any woman could nurse. She will never forget
that. She and her daughters quitted me to-day, in mute wrath and
consternation; but she respects me. When Henry clung to my neck as I
lifted him into the carriage and placed him by her side, when I arranged
her own wrapping to make her warm, though she turned her head from me, I
saw the tears start to her eyes. She will but the more zealously
advocate my cause because she has left me in anger. I am glad of
this--not for my own sake, but for that of my life and idol--my
Shirley."

Once again he writes, a week after:--"I am now at Stilbro'. I have taken
up my temporary abode with a friend--a professional man, in whose
business I can be useful. Every day I ride over to Fieldhead. How long
will it be before I can call that place my home, and its mistress mine?
I am not easy, not tranquil; I am tantalized, sometimes tortured. To see
her now, one would think she had never pressed her cheek to my shoulder,
or clung to me with tenderness or trust. I feel unsafe; she renders me
miserable. I am shunned when I visit he