decision on the part of others, inimical to all suggested
arrangements or plans for household convenience. The words "spring
cleaning" could never be mentioned in his presence. The thing itself
could only be achieved by stealth. A month at the seaside for the sake
of the children was a subject that could not be approached. All small
feminine social arrangements, dependent for their accomplishment on the
use of the horses, were mown down like grass. Colonel Bellairs hated
what he called "living by clockwork."

You may read, if you care to do so, in the faces of many gentle-tempered
and apparently prosperous married women, an enormous fatigue. Wicked,
blood-curdling husbands do not bring this look into women's faces. It is
men like Colonel Bellairs who hold the recipe for calling it into
existence.

Mrs. Bellairs, a beautiful woman, with high spirits, but not
high-spirited, became more and more silent and apathetic year by year,
yielded more and more and more, yielded at last without expostulation
equally at every point, when she should have yielded and when she should
have stood firm, yielded at last even where her children's health and
well-being were concerned.

Apathy and health are seldom housemates for long together. Mrs. Bellairs
gradually declined from her chair to her sofa. She made no effort to
live after her youngest daughter was born. She could have done so if she
had wished it, but she seemed to have no wish on the subject, or on any
other subject. There is an Arabian proverb which seems to embody in it
all the melancholy of the desert, and Mrs. Bellairs exemplified it. "It
is better to sit than to stand. It is better to lie than to sit. It is
better to sleep than to lie. It is better to die than to sleep."

Fay had been glad enough, as we have seen, to escape from home by
marriage. No such way of escape had apparently presented itself for the
elder sister. As Magdalen and Fay sat together on the terrace in front
of the house, the contrast between the sisters was more marked than the
ten years' difference of age seemed to warrant.

Magdalen was a tall, thin woman of thirty-five, who looked older than
her age. She had evidently been extremely pretty once. Perhaps she might
even have been young once. But it must have been a long time ago. She
was a faded, distinguished-looking person, with a slight stoop, and a
worn, delicately-featured face, and humorous, tranquil eyes. Her thick
hair was grey. She looked