l sorry to see you in a cunning
woman's leading strings; and I pitied you--but now go to!--I despise
you as much as I pitied you before. We two have had our last words
together."

And with his most vicious look, Peter sauntered away, whistling.

Walter remained standing on the selfsame spot for half an hour, at
least, without moving. His brain was reeling--he fetched his breath
heavily, and shut his eyes, as though he felt ashamed to see himself by
the light of day, while such thoughts were seething in his imagination.
At last he heard Helen's step upon the stairs; he felt as if he had
been scalded, and impelled by some inexplicable instinct, he seized his
cap, and fled; through the garden, out into the open country.

She heard him go, but she had no suspicion that it was from her he
fled; she went to the window and looked after him as long as she could
catch a glimpse of his long light hair among the leafless shrubberies.

She thought she had wept away all that had been so heavy on her heart.
People who are sparing of their tears expect wonders from them, and the
good they are supposed to do, when they do flow. But she found they had
done very little to solace her.

What made her weep so bitterly? She had long schooled herself to meet
aggression with the tranquil energy of a mind, that no contradiction of
fate can disappoint or surprise, for the reason that it is entirely
without hopes or wishes.

She believed that she had nothing to expect from life--nothing to gain.
Now, she had been suddenly reminded how much she had to lose.

First of all:--to a proud spirit the bitterest loss--confidence in her
own heart. Those unsparing words, concerning her relations with a
child, whom she had seen grow up to manhood, had sounded strange and
incomprehensible when she had first heard them--she believed that she
could shake them from her, as an insult. Other cares that had arisen
during that interview with her brother-in-law, had then appeared more
urgent. But as soon as she had found herself alone in her silent room,
all other cares had dissolved like shadows, and the words she had so
scornfully disowned--these words alone remained.

She thought over the ten years that had passed, since she had first
entered that dreary house; when the intimidated boy, dumb between his
adopted parents, who quarrelled over him daily, with ever-increasing
discord, had come to her at once, and poured forth all the sorrows of
his little hear