suspiciously.

"What were you doing?" he asked.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "this is intolerable!"

"What is intolerable?" he demanded.

"This intrusion," she replied. "I want to be alone for a little; can't
you understand that?"

"No, I cannot understand a wife locking her husband out of her room,
and what's more, you've no business to do it. I've a legal right to
come here whenever I choose."

Then Beth began to realise what the law of man was with regard to her
person.

"I never intrude upon you when you shut yourself up," she
remonstrated.

"Oh, that is different," he answered arrogantly. "I may have brainwork
to do, or something important to think about There is no comparison."

Beth went to her dressing-table, sat down in front of it, folded her
hands, and waited doggedly.

He looked at her for a little; then he said, "I don't understand your
treatment of me at all, Beth. But there's no understanding women." He
spoke as if it were the women's fault, and to their discredit, that he
couldn't understand them.

Beth made no answer, and he finally took himself off, slamming the
door after him.

"Thank goodness!" Beth exclaimed. "One would think he had bought me."

Then she sat wondering what she should do. She must have some corner
where she would be safe from intrusion. He had his consulting-room, a
room called his laboratory, a surgery, and a dressing-room, where no
one would dream of following him if he shut the door; she had
literally not a corner. She left her bedroom, and walked through the
other rooms on the same floor as she considered the matter; then she
went up to the next floor, where the servants slept. Above that again
there was an attic used as a box-room, and she went up there too. It
was a barn of a place, supported by pillars, and extending apparently
over the whole of the storey below. The roof sloped to the floor on
either side, and the whole place was but ill-lighted by two small
windows looking to the north. Dr. Maclure had taken over the house as
it stood, furniture and all, from the last occupants, by whom this
great attic had evidently been used as a lumber-room. There were
various pieces of furniture in it--tables, chairs, and drawers, some
broken, some in fair condition. At the farther end, opposite to the
door, there was a pile of packing-cases and travelling-trunks. Beth
had always thought that they stood up against the wall, but on going
over to them now, she discovered that t