When first the tidings of George Liddell’s return and his assertion of his rights reached her, she was terrified and undone by Colonel Ormonde’s fury against Katherine, herself, her boys, every one.  In short, that gallant officer thought he had done a generous and manly thing, when he married the piquant little widow who had attracted him, although she could only meet her personal expenses and those of her two sons, without contributing to the general house-keeping.  This sense of his own magnanimity, backed by the consciousness that it did not cost him too dear, had kept Colonel Ormonde in the happiest of moods for the first years of his married life.  Terrible was the awakening from the dream of his own good luck and general “fine-fellowism”; and heavily would the punishment have fallen on his wife had she been a sensitive or high-minded woman.  Being, however, admirably suited to the partner of her life, she looked round, as soon as the first burst of despair was over, to see how she could make the best of her position.

She was really vexed and irritated to find how little tenderness or regard her husband felt for her, for she had always believed that he was greatly devoted to her.  To both of them the outside world was all in all, and on this Mrs. Ormonde counted largely.  Colonel Ormonde could not put her away or lock her up because the provision made by Katherine for the boys failed her, so while she was mistress of Castleford she must have dresses and carriages and consideration.  Knowing herself secure on these points, she fearlessly adopted the system of counter-irritation she described to Katherine; and to do her justice, her consciousness that the boys were safe under the care of their aunt, who would be sure to treat them well and kindly, made her the more ready to brave the dangers of her husband’s wrath.

“He must behave well before people, or men will say he is a ‘cad’ to visit his disappointment on his poor little simple-hearted wife,” she thought.  “He knows that.  Then it is an enormous relief that Katherine still clings to the boys, poor dears!  She really is a trump; so I have only myself to think of; and Duke shall find that his shabbiness and ill-temper do him no good.  It’s like drawing his teeth to get my quarter’s allowance, beggarly as it is, from him.”

Colonel Ormonde’s reflections, as he composed a letter to his steward, were by no means soothing.  Though it was all but impossible for him to hold his tongue respecting his disappointment, whenever a shade of difference occurred between him and his wife, he was uncomfortably conscious that he often acted like a brute toward the mother of his boy, of whom he was so proud; he was not therefore the more disposed to rule his hasty, inconsiderate temper.  The fact that Mrs. Ormonde had her own methods of paying him back disposed him to respect her, and it could not be doubted that in time the friction of their natures would rub off the angles of each, and they would settle down into tolerable harmony, whereas a proud, true-hearted woman in her place would have been utterly crushed and never forgiven.