tiptoe to get nearer to him. Arthur had
no need to ask again whether she loved him
and forgave him.

Arthur's private interview with his mother
was more violent. The passions of both were
roused, and ran riot. He openly accused
her of falsehood, and heaped on her
reproaches the most wounding to bear; but
they were merited, if harshly worded and
not befitting him to make, with such unfilial
passion: she, losing dignity, self-respect, and
maternal feeling, retorted on him with taunts
and insinuations that curdled the man's
blood round his heart. Of course, Arthur
must find a new home for his young wife, she
said.

Unfortunately Geraldine entered the room
at this climax of the discussion, from the
drawing-room, the door of which was open:

"I will not leave this house, Mrs. Amphlett,"
she exclaimed, passionately. "Thornivale
being entailed property, belongs to my
husband. I am, therefore, its lawful mistress.
You are my guest; I am not your guest."

"Geraldine! Geraldine!" expostulated
Arthur.

"Hush!" said the young wife, imperiously.
"This affair is mine, not yours. I do not
expect you to defend me against your mother.
I must defend myself."

With which words she turned away, and
passed back into the drawing-room again.

"You are right, Geraldine," said Miss
Vaughan, who had heard all that passed, and
who was shaken off her stilts, and out of her
starch and buckram by the gravity of the
scene. "If you leave Thornivale, your
character is lost; you need never attempt to
show your face in the neighbourhood
again."

"I will not leave Thornivale," said Geraldine,
positively, and working rapidly at her
embroidery, but making nothing but false
stitches.

"My wife has spoken the truth, mother,"
said Arthur. "I would not have said so,
even now; but it is the truth."

"Must I abide by it, Arthur?" sneered
Mrs. Amphlett. "Must I leave Thornivale
for that worthless creature you call your
wife? Please yourself with the thought,
my boy; for, as I live, you will have nothing
but the thought!"

"I will have the deed, mother," said
Arthur. "Remember! What I assert I
generally fulfil. Understand, then, that since
you cannot live with my wife in such respectability
as you deem due to you, you must
leave us. You shall not banish her from
hers. I have no more to say; I leave you
to think of what I have said." Arthur strode
into the drawing-room, closing the door after
him.

Thus left to herself, old Mrs. Amphlett's
passion swept, without check or barrier,
through her soul. It was awful to witness.
She strode up and down the long oaken
library; her hard-drawn breathing was
heard in the drawing-room, through all the
massive doors and heavy curtains made to
shut out louder sounds than a woman's
breathing. Her face was distorted; her teeth
set, and her hands clenched tightly together;
while the "Amphlett cut" in her forehead
was deep, and the brows knotted and
swollen. She was more like a panther than
a human being, as she raged and chafed in
that den-like room; her passionate heart
wearing itself fiercely against her fate. That
she should have been baffled by such a girl as
Geraldine: that her power, her very will, her
plans, her words, should all have been torn
and scattered to the winds by the simple,
ignorant breath of one whom she persisted in
believing half an idiot!

Suddenly a heavy fall was heard; Arthur
and Geraldine rushed in. They found her
lying speechless on the ground, in a fit—a fit
produced by passion. Gradually recovering,
her eyes turned on Arthur and Geraldine
standing near her: Geraldine occupied in some
little womanly office about her, and Arthur
looking on in genuine distress. She tried to
speak, but failed; though she made several
attempts. At last a strange unnatural voice
issued from her lips; and, with her fiery eyes
still fierce if even somewhat subdued, and her
stern black brows still swollen, she said,
"Ah! well, you are not quite such a fool as
I thought you were;" and, after a short
time, adding, "I have almost a respect for
you."

Mrs. Amphlett never rallied from this fit.
She did not die; but she was never the same
woman again, as the servants said. By force
she was obliged to let her daughter reign in
her stead; she living helpless and inactive in
a wheeled chair. She kept up her old privilege
of "truth-telling," and was to the last a
fierce, cruel, passionate woman; but she
treated her daughter-in-law with respect: for
Geraldine had received a lesson she never
forgot, and, while dutiful and thoughtful and
kind and bright, she made both her husband
and her mother feel that something had been
fairly developed in her nature which could
never fail her again. It is a doubt whether
Arthur loved her as he loved her when she was
more timid and submissive; but he respected
her more and treated her with greater
consideration. He was his mother's true son,
and inherited her nature and temperament,
though softened and modified. But, by virtue
of this inheritance, he was disposed to tyrannise
over the weak, as Geraldine would have
found out when the youth of her marriage
had fled, had she not changed as has been
described; and she could not have changed
without some such vital crisis as she had
passed through. Thus, on the whole, she
got on very well between the fierce old
crippled woman and the moody, jealous man.
Mrs. Amphlett was never weary of saying,
"Bless me! I thought that girl a perfect