ly to have
tried to soothe him. As it was, the brute had gone raging off and would
vent his fury on her.

What had he better do?

He was not long perceiving that there was nothing that he could do. The
natural thing was to go to the Castle and prevent her husband--by force,
if need be--from abusing and bullying Olivia. That was what his
strongest instincts bade him do. It was quite impossible. It would
compromise her beyond repair. He had done her harm enough by his
impulsive indiscretion in the wood. His face slowly settled into a set
scowl as he cudgelled his brains to find a way of coming effectually to
her help. It seemed a vain effort, but a way had to be found.

Lord Loudwater galloped half-way to the Castle in a furious haste to
punish Olivia for allowing Grey to make love to her, and even more for
the contemptuous way in which Grey had treated him. He had hopes also
of bullying her into a confession of the truth of William Roper's
story. But Grey had excited him to a height of fury at which not even
he could remain without exhaustion. In a reaction he reined in his
horse to a canter, then to a trot, and then to a walk. He found that he
was feeling tired.

He continued, however, to chafe at his injuries, but with less vehemence,
and he was still resolved to make a strong effort to draw the confession
from Olivia. On reaching the Castle, he did not go to her at once. He sat
down in an easy chair in his smoking-room and drank two
whiskies-and-sodas.

In the background of Olivia's mind, meditating pleasantly on her pleasant
afternoon, there had been a patient and resigned expectation that
presently her conscience would begin to reproach her for allowing Grey to
make love to her. But the minutes slipped by, and she did not begin to
feel that she had been wicked. The meditation remained pleasant. At last
she realized suddenly that she was not going to feel wicked. She was
surprised and even a trifle horror-stricken by her insensibility. Then,
fairly faced by it, she came to the conclusion that, in a woman cursed
with such a brute of a husband, such insensibility was not only natural,
it was even proper.

Her woman's craving to be loved and to love was the strongest of her
emotions, and it had gone unsatisfied for so long. Her husband had
killed, or rather extirpated, her fondness for him before they had been
married a month. She was inclined to believe that she had never really
loved him at all. He had certain