way, and they'll have to see each other elsewhere."

* * * * *

Amherst returned to Lynbrook with the echoes of this casuistry in his
brain. It seemed to him but a part of the ingenious system of evasion
whereby a society bent on the undisturbed pursuit of amusement had
contrived to protect itself from the intrusion of the disagreeable: a
policy summed up in Mr. Langhope's concluding advice that Amherst should
take his wife away. Yes--that was wealth's contemptuous answer to every
challenge of responsibility: duty, sorrow and disgrace were equally to
be evaded by a change of residence, and nothing in life need be faced
and fought out while one could pay for a passage to Europe!

In a calmer mood Amherst's sense of humour would have preserved him from
such a view of his father-in-law's advice; but just then it fell like a
spark on his smouldering prejudices. He was clear-sighted enough to
recognize the obstacles to legal retaliation; but this only made him the
more resolved to assert his will in his own house. He no longer paused
to consider the possible effect of such a course on his already strained
relations with his wife: the man's will rose in him and spoke.

The scene between Bessy and himself was short and sharp; and it ended in
a way that left him more than ever perplexed at the ways of her sex.
Impatient of preamble, he had opened the attack with his ultimatum: the
suspected couple were to be denied the house. Bessy flamed into
immediate defence of her friend; but to Amherst's surprise she no
longer sounded the note of her own rights. Husband and wife were
animated by emotions deeper-seated and more instinctive than had ever
before confronted them; yet while Amherst's resistance was gathering
strength from the conflict, Bessy unexpectedly collapsed in tears and
submission. She would do as he wished, of course--give up seeing
Blanche, dismiss Bowfort, wash her hands, in short, of the imprudent
pair--in such matters a woman needed a man's guidance, a wife must of
necessity see with her husband's eyes; and she looked up into his
through a mist of penitence and admiration....

XXI

IN the first reaction from her brief delusion about Stephen Wyant,
Justine accepted with a good grace the necessity of staying on at
Lynbrook. Though she was now well enough to return to her regular work,
her talk with Amherst had made her feel that, for the present, she could
be of more use by