Dudley, with an afterthought, turned from the door and gave her an affectionate pat on the shoulder.  “It’s fine news, old girl,” he said cheerfully, and Eugenia smiled at him through her tears.

As he went out she followed him into the hall and slowly ascended the stairs.  On the landing above she entered a room where Bernard’s wife was lying on a wicker couch, cutting the pages of a magazine.

“Lottie, I’ve good news for you,” she exclaimed, “the best of news.”

Lottie tossed aside the magazine and raised herself on her elbow.  She had a pretty, ineffectual face and a girlish figure, and, despite her faded colouring, looked almost helplessly young.  Her round white hands were as weak as a child’s.

“I’m sure I don’t know what it can be,” she returned.  “You look awfully well in that red waist, Eugie.  I think I’ll get one like it.”

Eugenia picked up a child’s story book from the rug and laid it on the table; then she stood looking gravely down on the younger woman.

“Can’t you guess what it is?” she asked.

Lottie looked up with a nervous blinking of her eyes.  She had paled slightly and she leaned over and drew an eiderdown quilt across her knees.

“It—­it’s not about Bernard?” she asked in a whisper.

“Yes, it is about Bernard.  You may go to him and bring him home.  You may go to-morrow.  Oh, Lottie, doesn’t it make you happy?”

Lottie drew the eiderdown quilt still higher.  She was not looking at Eugenia, and her mouth had grown sullen.  “I don’t see why you send me,” she said.  “Why can’t Jack Tucker bring him home?  He’s with him.”

“But I thought you wanted to go,” returned Eugenia blankly.

“I haven’t seen him for six years,” said Lottie, her face still turned away.  “He is almost a stranger—­and I am afraid of him.”

“Oh, Lottie, he loves you so!”

“I don’t know,” protested Lottie.  “He has been so wicked.”

Eugenia was looking down upon her with dismayed eyes.

“Don’t you love him, Lottie?” she asked.

For a moment the other did not reply.  Her lips trembled and her knees were shaking beneath the eiderdown quilt.  Then with a slow turn of the head she looked up doggedly.  “I believe I hate him,” she answered.

A swift flush rose to Eugenia’s face, her eyes flashed angrily, she took a step forward.  “And you are his wife!” she cried.

But Lottie had turned at last.  She flung the quilt aside and rose to her feet, her girlish figure quivering in its beribboned wrapper.  There were bright pink spots in her cheeks.

“Yes, I am his wife, God help me,” she said.

Eugenia had drawn back before the childish desperation.  Lottie had never revolted before—­she had thought Eugenia’s thoughts and weakly lived up to Eugenia’s conception of her duty.  She had been meek and amiable and ineffectual; but it came to Eugenia with a shock that she had never admired her until to-day—­until the hour of her rebellion.