They went, unobserved as they thought, to the
great gallery-window, and looked out into the
court-yard; then Theresa returned to her rooms.
But the ice was broken, and before the winter
was over, Theresa fell into her old ways, and
sometimes smiled, and sometimes even laughed,
until chance visitors again spoke of her rare
beauty and her courtly grace.

It was noticeable that Theresa revived first
out of her lassitude to an interest in all Duke's
pursuits. She grew weary of Bessy's small cares
and domestic talk—now about the servants,
now about her mother and the Parsonage, now
about the parish. She questioned Duke about
his travels, and could enter into his appreciation
and judgment of foreign nations; she
perceived the latent powers of his mind; she became
impatient of their remaining dormant in country
seclusion. She had spoken of leaving Crowley
Castle, and of finding some other home, soon
after her father's death; but both Duke and
Bessy had urged her to stay with them, Bessy
saying, in the pure innocence of her heart, how
glad she was that, in the probably increasing
cares of her nursery, Duke would have a
companion so much to his mind.

About a year after Sir Mark's death, the
member for Sussex died, and Theresa set herself
to stir up Duke to assume his place. With
some difficulty (for Bessy was passive: perhaps
even opposed to the scheme in her quiet way),
Theresa succeeded, and Duke was elected. She
was vexed at Bessy's torpor, as she called it, in
the whole affair; vexed as she now often was
with Bessy's sluggish interest in all things
beyond her immediate ken. Once, when Theresa
tried to make Bessy perceive how Duke might
shine and rise in his new sphere, Bessy burst
into tears, and said, " You speak as if his
presence here were nothing, and his fame in London
everything. I cannot help fearing that he will
leave off caring for all the quiet ways in which we
have been so happy ever since we were married."

"But when he is here," replied Theresa, " and
when he wants to talk to you of politics, of
foreign news, of great public interests, you drag
him down to your level of woman's cares."

"Do I?" said Bessy. " Do I drag him
down? I wish I was cleverer; but you know,
Theresa, I was never clever in anything but
housewifery."

Theresa was touched for a moment by this
humility.

"Yet, Bessy, you have a great deal of
judgment, if you will but exercise it. Try and take
an interest in all he cares for, as well as making
him try and take an interest in home affairs."

But, somehow, this kind of conversation too
often ended in dissatisfaction on both sides; and
the servants gathered, from induction rather than
from words, that the two ladies were not on the
most cordial terms; however friendly they might
wish to be, and might strive to appear. Madam
Hawtrey, too, allowed her jealousy of Theresa to
deepen into dislike. She was jealous because,
in some unreasonable way, she had taken it into
her head that Theresa's presence at the castle
was the reason why she was not urged to take
up her abode there on Sir Mark's death: as if
there were not rooms and suites of rooms enough
to lodge a wilderness of dowagers in the building,
if the owner so wished. But Duke had
certain ideas pretty strongly fixed in his mind;
and one was a repugnance to his mother-in-law's
constant company. But he greatly increased her
income as soon as he had it in his power, and
left it entirely to herself how she should spend it.

Having now the means of travelling about,
Madam Hawtrey betook herself pretty frequently
to such watering-places as were in vogue at that
day, or went to pay visits at the houses of those
friends who occasionally came lumbering up in
shabby vehicles to visit their cousin Bessy at the
castle. Theresa cared little for Madam
Hawtrey's coldness; perhaps, indeed, never
perceived it. She gave up striving with Bessy,
too; it was hopeless to try to make her an
intellectual ambitious companion to her
husband. He had spoken in the House; he had
written a pamphlet that made much noise; the
minister of the day had sought him out, and
was trying to attach him to the government.
Theresa, with her Parisian experience
of the way in which women influenced
politics, would have given anything for the
Brownlows to have taken a house in London. She
longed to see the great politicians, to find
herself in the thick of the struggle for place
and power, the brilliant centre of all that was
worth hearing and seeing in the kingdom.
There had been some talk of this same London,
house; but Bessy had pleaded against it earnestly
while Theresa sat by in indignant silence, until
she could bear the discussion no longer; going
off to her own sitting-room, where Victorine
was at work. Here her pent-up words found
vent—not addressed to her servant, but not
restrained before her:

"I cannot bear it—to see him cramped in by
her narrow mind, to hear her weak selfish
arguments, urged because she feels she would be out
of place beside him. And Duke is hampered
with this woman: he whose powers are unknown
even to himself, or he would put her feeble
nature on one side, and seek his higher
atmosphere. How he would shine! How he does
shine! Good Heaven! To think—"

And here she sank into silence, watched by
Victorine's furtive eyes.

Duke had excelled all he had previously
done by some great burst of eloquence, and
the country rang with his words. He was
to come down to Crowley Castle for a
parliamentary recess, which occurred almost
immediately after this. Theresa calculated the
hours of each part of the complicated journey,
and could have told to five minutes when he
might be expected; but the baby was ill and
absorbed all Bessy's attention. She was in the
nursery by the cradle in which the child slept,
when her husband came riding up to the castle
gate. But Theresa was at the gate; her hair
all out of powder, and blowing away into
dishevelled curls, as the hood of her cloak fell back;