door with
hysterical vehemence. "I am weary of hearing of your mother and your
sisters!" she broke in violently. "You talk of nothing else."

It was just possible to make one more mistake in dealing with her--and
Horace made it. He took offense, on his side, and rose from the sofa.
His mother and sisters were high authorities in his estimation; they
variously represented his ideal of perfection in women. He withdrew
to the opposite extremity of the room, and administered the severest
reproof that he could think of on the spur of the moment.

"It would be well, Grace, if you followed the example set you by
my mother and my sisters," he said. "_They_ are not in the habit of
speaking cruelly to those who love them."

To all appearance the rebuke failed to produce the slightest effect.
She seemed to be as indifferent to it as if it had not reached her ears.
There was a spirit in her--a miserable spirit, born of her own bitter
experience--which rose in revolt against Horace's habitual glorification
of the ladies of his family. "It sickens me," she thought to herself,
"to hear of the virtues of women who have never been tempted! Where
is the merit of living reputably, when your life is one course of
prosperity and enjoyment? Has his mother known starvation? Have his
sisters been left forsaken in the street?" It hardened her heart--it
almost reconciled her to deceiving him--when he set his relatives up as
patterns for her. Would he never understand that women detested having
other women exhibited as examples to them? She looked round at him with
a sense of impatient wonder. He was sitting at the luncheon-table, with
his back turned on her, and his head resting on his hand. If he had
attempted to rejoin her, she would have repelled him; if he had spoken,
she would have met him with a sharp reply. He sat apart from her,
without uttering a word. In a man's hands silence is the most terrible
of all protests to the woman who loves him. Violence she can endure.
Words she is always ready to meet by words on her side. Silence conquers
her. After a moment's hesitation, Mercy left the sofa and advanced
submissively toward the table. She had offended him--and she alone
was in fault. How should he know it, poor fellow, when he innocently
mortified her? Step by step she drew closer and closer. He never looked
round; he never moved. She laid her hand timidly on his shoulder.
"Forgive me, Horace," she whispered in his ear. "I am suffering