“You will, of course, try to deny——­” he insisted.

“No, I shall not.  Why should I?”

“You may assume your air of magnificence, but I am dealing with uncomfortable factors.”  He stopped in spite of himself, and then burst forth in a new order of rage.  “You are trying some confounded experiment on me.  What is it?”

She rose from her chair to go out of the room, and stood a moment holding her book half open in her hand.

“Yes.  I suppose it might be called an experiment,” was her answer.  “Perhaps it was a mistake.  I wanted to make quite sure of something.”

“Of what?”

“I did not want to leave anything undone.  I did not want to believe that any man could exist who had not one touch of decent feeling to redeem him.  It did not seem human.”

White dints showed themselves about his nostrils.

“Well, you have found one,” he cried.  “You have a lashing tongue, by God, when you choose to let it go.  But I could teach you a good many things, my girl.  And before I have done you will have learned most of them.”

But though he threw himself into a chair and laughed aloud as she left him, he knew that his arrogance and bullying were proving poor weapons, though they had done him good service all his life.  And he knew, too, that it was mere simple truth that, as a result of the intellectual, ethical vagaries he scathingly derided—­she had actually been giving him a sort of chance to retrieve himself, and that if he had been another sort of man he might have taken it.

CHAPTER XLIV

A FOOTSTEP

It was cold enough for fires in halls and bedrooms, and Lady Anstruthers often sat over hers and watched the glowing bed of coals with a fixed thoughtfulness of look.  She was so sitting when her sister went to her room to talk to her, and she looked up questioningly when the door closed and Betty came towards her.

“You have come to tell me something,” she said.

A slight shade of anxiousness showed itself in her eyes, and Betty sat down by her and took her hand.  She had come because what she knew was that Rosalie must be prepared for any step taken, and the time had arrived when she must not be allowed to remain in ignorance even of things it would be unpleasant to put into words.

“Yes,” she answered.  “I want to talk to you about something I have decided to do.  I think I must write to father and ask him to come to us.”

Rosalie turned white, but though her lips parted as if she were going to speak, she said nothing.

“Do not be frightened,” Betty said.  “I believe it is the only thing to do.”

“I know!  I know!”

Betty went on, holding the hand a little closer.  “When I came here you were too weak physically to be able to face even the thought of a struggle.  I saw that.  I was afraid it must come in the end, but I knew that at that time you could not bear it.  It would have killed you and might have killed mother, if I had not waited; and until you were stronger, I knew I must wait and reason coolly about you—­about everything.”