“Don’t ask me to do any thing.  I will not.  I wash my hands of the whole matter.  If the story be true, and Miss Bennett can be guilty of conduct so indecorous, it would never do for me to be mixed up in such an improper proceeding and if untrue, and I accused her of it, I should find myself in a very unpleasant position.  So, Mrs. Grey, since you have interfered in this matter, you must carry it out on your own responsibility.  If you have taken a grudge against Miss Bennett—­which I did not expect, considering your own antecedents—­you must just do as you like concerning her.  But, bless me! how the evening is slipping by.  Come, Maria, I shall hardly have time to dress for the vice chancellor’s.”

So saying, Miss Gascoigne swept away, her silk skirts flowing behind her.  Aunt Maria followed with one pathetic glance at “dear Arnold;” and the husband and wife were left alone.

Dr. Grey threw himself into his arm-chair, and there came across his face the weary look, which Christian had of late learned to notice, indicating that he was no more a young man, and that his life had been longer in trials than even in years.

“My dear, I wish you women-kind could settle these domestic troubles among yourselves.  We men have so many outside worries to contend with.  It is rather hard.”

It was hard.  Christian reproached herself almost as if she had been the primary cause of this, the first complaint she had ever heard him make, and which he seemed immediately to regret having allowed to escape him.

“I don’t mean, my dear wife, that you should not have told me this; indeed, it was impossible to keep it from me.  It all springs from Aunt Henrietta.  I wish she—­But she is Aunt Henrietta, and we must just make the best of her, as I have done for nearly twenty years.”

“And why did you?” rose irrepressibly to Christian’s lips.  The sense of wild resistance to injustice and wrong, so strong in youth, was still not beaten down.  It roused in her something very like fierceness—­these gentle creatures can be fierce sometimes—­to see a good man like Dr. Grey trodden down and domineered over by this narrow-minded, bad-tempered woman.  “I often wonder at your patience, and at all you forgive.”

“Seventy times seven,” was the quick answer.  And Christian became silenced and grave.  “Still,” he added, smiling, “a sin against one’s self does not include a sin against another.  The next time Henrietta speaks as she spoke to you just now, she and I will have a very serious quarrel.”

“Oh no, no!  Not for my sake.  I had rather die than bring dissension into this house.”

“My poor child, people can not die so easily.  They have to live on and endure.  But what were we talking about; for I forget:  I believe I do forget things sometimes;” and he passed his hand over his forehead.  “I am not so young as you, my dear; and, though my life has looked smooth enough outside; there has been a good deal of trouble in it.  In truth,”—­he added, “I have had some vexatious things perplexing me today, which must excuse my being so dull and disagreeable.”