"I am not crying," said Geraldine, boldly.

"No?—What is that on your hand, if it be
not a tear? Fie! you must not be untruthful,
according to the common vice of the
weak."

Arthur went to the window, pale with
suppressed passion. For the moment he
hated Geraldine. The young wife had passed
a sleepless night. She was nervous and
unwell. She tried to calm herself, but she
felt as if something gave way within her, and
sighing gently she sank very quietly back
against the pillows of the ottoman where she
was sitting, in a dead swoon.

A loud knock came to the door.

"Geraldine!" exclaimed Mrs. Amphlett,
"Geraldine! Why, bless my soul, Arthur,
the girl has fainted!"

Before any order or aid could be given the
footman threw open the door, and a lady, all
flounces, rustling silk, dignity, and statuesque
beauty—Arthur's natural wife, as Mrs.
Amphlett called her—Miss Vaughan, of Croft,
walked leisurely forward.

Calmly surveying the fainting Geraldine
through her eye-glass, the visitor turned
gracefully away, saying, as Mrs. Amphlett
herself had once said: "How very inconvenient
for her!"

Arthur reddened and turned pale by
turns; "Good!" said Mrs. Amphlett, to
herself, with a cruel smile, "the first blow is
really struck now!"

She led Miss Vaughan into the inner
drawing-room, while Gryce attended on
Geraldine.

"You had better leave my maid with
your wife, Arthur," she said, speaking as
she stood between the rooms, holding the
curtain in her hand. But Arthur refused.
No! he would rather attend to her himself.

"What a model husband," said Miss
Vaughan; but, in a voice so calm, so sweet,
so silvery and even, that no one could
know whether she spoke ironically or
admiringly. Arthur was in a bad humour,
and disposed to see all in shadow. He took
her words as a cutting satire; and Geraldine
fared none the better in his heart for the
belief. This was the first time, since he had
known Geraldine, that a thought of
unfavourable criticism had crossed his mind;
the first time that he had said to himself, "I
wish I had waited."

Mrs. Amphlett had the art—no one exactly
knew how—of making every person appear
illogical, ridiculous, ungraceful, ill-bred; yet,
not from any special amount of grace or
good breeding in herself; rather the reverse.
Her manners were chiefly noticeable for
their undisguised contempt, and their immovable
assumption of superiority; though she
was, certainly, a handsome woman, yet it was
not of a kind to throw any other beauty into
the shade. She was pale to bloodlessness, with
a fierce eye and a cruel jaw. She wore her
white hair braided low on her square forehead;
but her thick, straight eyebrows were
still black as ebony, and the light-hazel, deep
set eyes beneath them had lost none of
their fire or power. The lines between
her brows were deep and harsh. The centre
furrow—the Amphlett cut, it was called—
with the heavy brow swelling on each side,
was especially forbidding. Her nose was
sharp, high and handsome; her thin lips
closed lightly over small and even—but
discoloured—teeth; and her chin was square-cut,
massive, and slightly protruding. Not
then from grace or beauty came her special
power of moral oppression; but from her
cruelty. She was infinitely cruel and
harsh. She said exactly what she thought,
be it ever so painful; and no one ever knew
her to soften her words for pity, grace, or
delicacy. She prided herself on her honesty,
her directness, her absence of false sentiment,
and her ruthless crusade against all forms of
weakness. In her first interview with any
one she measured that person's power of
self-assertion. If the stranger yielded to her,
whether from timidity or amiability, she set her
foot on the stranger's neck and kept it there.
If opposed, she hated, but still respected her
opponent. The only thing in the world that
she respected was strength; and the only
person in her neighbourhood to whom she
was not insolent was Miss Vaughan. For,
Miss Vaughan, though of a different nature,
was as dauntless and self-asserting as Mrs.
Amphlett, and suffered no one to come too
near her. They were co-queens—not rivals
—and regarded each other's rights.

As for Geraldine, she simply despised her:
honouring her with only a reflective hatred,
because of her marriage with her son. Had
it not been for that, she would have quietly
walked over her and have trodden her out of
her path. But she could not do this now;
so Geraldine was promoted to the dignity of
her intense hatred and ceaseless, fierce
displeasure. The girl felt her position and pined
under it. Hence she was losing those merely
outside physical graces she had promised when
she married; and which had counted for
something in her husband's love. Arthur, too,
was influenced by his mother's perpetual
harping on Geraldine's faults. Soon he learnt
to apologise for her; then to criticise her
himself—not always favourably—and lastly,
to feel slightly ashamed of her. His pride
and manhood prevented his falling very low
there; but a great peril lay before him:
none the less perilous because not confessed.

In the midst of all these dangerous beginnings
Arthur was called away on business,
cunningly provided for him, and Geraldine
was left to the care of her mother-in-law.
The heavy gates had scarcely swung back for
her son to pass out, when Mrs. Amphlett sat
down to write a letter to Cousin Hal—the
scapegrace of the family—the handsomest