light of? Brought up as a flower and trampled as a weed! Bound in cotton and steeped in vitriol! You needn't speak"—I had tried, for pity, to remonstrate. "You can say nothing but bald folly. There's nothing to be said but this—that I'm insulted. Do you understand?" He uttered the word with a concentrated agony of vanity. "I guessed it from the first. I knew it was coming. Mr. Cope—Mr. Cope—always Mr. Cope. It poisoned my journey—it poisoned my pleasure—it poisoned Italy. You don't know what that means. But what matter, so long as it has poisoned my home? I held my tongue—I swallowed my rage; I was patient, I was gentle, I forbore. And for this! I could have damned him with a word! At the seaside, hey? Enjoying the breezes—splashing in the surf—picking up shells. It's idyllic, it's ideal—great heavens, it's fabulous, it's monstrous! It's well she's not here. I don't answer for myself. Yes, madam, stare, stare, wring your hands! You see an angry man, an outraged man, but a man, mind you! He means to act as one."
This sweeping torrent of unreason I had vainly endeavored to arrest. He pushed me aside, strode out of the room, and went bounding upstairs to his own chamber, where I heard him close the door with a terrible bang and turn the key. My hope was that his passion would expend itself in this first
