the churchyard near
by, indifferent to it all. Nothing could restore to him the secret he had
divulged that afternoon.

A shade of apprehension deepened on his downcast face. Then he frowned
impatiently, and plunged into his writing again.

CHAPTER VII

On leaving his master's room Thalassa went swiftly downstairs and
disappeared into some remote back region of the lonely old house. He had
other duties to perform before his day's work was finished. There was wood
to be chopped, coal to be brought in, water to be drawn. Nearly an hour
elapsed before he reappeared, candle in hand, and entered the kitchen.

A little woman with a furtive face, sharp nose, and blinking eyes was
seated at one end of the kitchen table with playing-cards spread out in
front of her. She looked up at the sound of the opening door, and fear
crept into her eyes. She was Thalassa's wife, but the relationship was so
completely ignored by Thalassa that other people were apt to forget its
existence. The couple did the work of Flint House between them, but apart
from that common interest Thalassa gave his wife very little of his
attention, leading a solitary morose life, eating and sleeping alone, and
holding no converse with her apart from what was necessary for the
management of the house.

How he had ever come to bend his neck to the matrimonial yoke was one of
those mysteries which must be accounted a triumph for the pursuing sex--a
tribute to the fearlessness of woman in the ardour of the chase. On no
other hypothesis was it possible to understand how such a feeble specimen
of womanhood had been able to bring down such an untoward specimen of the
masculine brute. Outwardly, Thalassa had more kinship with a pirate than a
husband. There was that in his swart eagle visage and moody eyes which
suggested lawless cruises, untrammelled adventure, and the fierce wooing
of brown women by tropic seas rather than the dull routine of married
life. As a husband he was an anomaly like a caged macaw in a spinster's
drawing-room.

Mrs. Thalassa's victory had ended with bringing him down, and she soon had
cause to regret her temerity in marrying him. Thalassa repaid the
indignity of capture by a course of treatment which had long since subdued
his wife to a state of perpetual fear of him--a fear which deepened into
speechless shaking horror when he stormed out at her in one of his black
rages. Some women would have taken to drink, others to religion.