Lady Ombersley looked helplessly at her son, but he said nothing. Cecilia twitched the open sheet of paper from her mother’s fingers, and clasped it to her palpitating bosom. This did goad Mr. Rivenhall into speech. “For God sake, Cecilia, let us have no play acting!” he said.

“How dared you read my letter?” she retorted.

“I did not read your letter ! I gave it to Mama, and you will scarcely say that she had no right to read it!”

Her soft blue eyes swam with tears; she said in a low voice, “It is all your fault! Mama would never — I hate you, Charles, I hate you!”

He shrugged, and turned away. Lady Ombersley said feebly, “You should not talk so, Cecilia! You know it is quite improper in you to be receiving letters without my knowledge! I do not know what your papa would say if he heard of it.”

“Papa!” exclaimed Cecilia scornfully. “No! It is Charles who delights in making me unhappy!”

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “It would be useless, I collect, to say that my earnest wish is that you should not be made unhappy.”

She returned no answer, but folded her letter with shaking hands, and bestowed it in her bosom, throwing a defiant look at him as she did so. It was met with one of contempt; Mr. Rivenhall propped his shoulders against the mantelshelf, dug his hands into his breeches pockets, and waited sardonically for what she might say next.

She dried her eyes instead, catching her breath on little sobs. She was a very lovely girl, with pale golden locks arranged in ringlets about an exquisitely shaped face, whose delicate complexion was at the moment heightened, not unbecomingly, by an angry flush. In general, her expression was one of sweet pensiveness, but the agitation of the moment had kindled a martial spark in her eyes, and she was gripping her underlip between her teeth in a way that made her look quite vicious. Her brother, cynically observing this, said that she should make a practice of losing her temper, since it improved her, lending animation to a countenance well enough in its way but a trifle insipid.