“Oh yes you are, my little lady.”

“No, I am not.”  There was no misapprehension now.

“Not going to ride out?” Hartley’s brows contracted.

“No; I am not going to ride out to-day.”  Each word was distinctly spoken.

“I don’t understand you, Irene.”

“Are not my words plain enough?”

“Yes, they are too plain—­so plain as to make them involve a mystery.  What do you mean by this sudden change of purpose?”

“I don’t wish to ride out,” said Irene, with assumed calmness of manner; “and that being so, may I not have my will in the case?”

“No—­”

A red spot burned on Irene’s cheeks and her eyes flashed.

“No,” repeated her husband; “not after you have given up that will to another.”

“To you!” Irene started to her feet in instant passion.  “And so I am to be nobody, and you the lord and master.  My will is to be nothing, and yours the law of my life.”  Her lip curled in contemptuous anger.

“You misunderstand me,” said Hartley Emerson, speaking as calmly as was possible in this sudden emergency.  “I did not refer specially to myself, but to all of our party, to whom you had given up your will in a promise to ride out with them, and to whom, therefore, you were bound.”

“An easy evasion,” retorted the excited bride, who had lost her mental equipoise.

“Irene,” the young man spoke sternly, “are those the right words for your husband?  An easy evasion!”

“I have said them.”

“And you must unsay them.”

Both had passed under the cloud which pride and passion had raised.

“Must!  I thought you knew me better, Hartley.”  Irene grew suddenly calm.

“If there is to be love between us, all barriers must be removed.”

“Don’t say must to me, sir!  I will not endure the word.”

Hartley turned from her and walked the floor with rapid steps, angry, grieved and in doubt as to what it were best for him to do.  The storm had broken on him without a sign of warning, and he was wholly unprepared to meet it.

“Irene,” he said, at length, pausing before her, “this conduct on your part is wholly inexplicable.  I cannot understand its meaning.  Will you explain yourself?”

“Certainly.  I am always ready to give a reason for my conduct,” she replied, with cold dignity.

“Say on, then.”  Emerson spoke with equal coldness of manner.

“I did not wish to ride out, and said so in the beginning.  That ought to have been enough for you.  But no—­my wishes were nothing; your will must be law.”

“And that is all! the head and front of my offending!” said Emerson, in a tone of surprise.

“It isn’t so much the thing itself that I object to, as the spirit in which it is done,” said Irene.

“A spirit of overbearing self-will!’ said Emerson.

“Yes, if you choose.  That is what my soul revolts against.  I gave you my heart and my hand—­my love and my confidence—­not my freedom.  The last is a part of my being, and I will maintain it while I have life.”