It was through no will of her own that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney had remained at Duciehurst. She had been eager and instant in the preparations for departure as soon as the approach of the boat was heralded. She had aided the old nurse with convulsive haste by hustling the baby’s effects into his suitcase, jamming his cap down on his head and shaking him into his coat with little ceremony. She had seen from the broken windows of the deserted music-room the Ducie brothers, the last of all the procession of travelers, wending down toward the great white shell in the river slowly approaching, throwing off the foam in wreaths on each side. The two men walked shoulder to shoulder; now and again they paused to confer; then going on; and there was something so affectionate in their look and attitude, almost leaning on one another, so endearing in the way in which one would lay his hand on the other’s arm that tears sprang to her eyes, and, for the moment, she felt that nothing was worth having in the world but the enduring affection of a simple heart, which asks naught but love in return.

The momentary weakness was gone as it had come. She could feel only elation—to be going, to get out of the house of Randal Ducie, which she had entered with reluctance, even when she had doubted his claim, and now that it had been proved valid in fact, if not in law, she could scarcely wait to be quit of it.

In the hall, as she flustered forth—as Floyd-Rosney would have described her agitated movements—she was astonished to come upon her husband, placidly pacing up and down, his deliberate cigar between his lips, his hands clasped behind him.

“Why, dear,”—she used the connubial address from force of habit, for her voice was crisp and keenly pitched—“aren’t you ready?”

“Seems not,” he said, looking at her enigmatically.

“But we shall be left!” she exclaimed.

“Exactly.” He took his cigar from his mouth and emitted a puff of fragrant nicotian.

He was wont to consult his own whims, but hitherto her supine acquiescence had been actuated less by a realization of helplessness than endorsement of his right of mastery, his superior and prevailing will. She thought of her submissiveness at the moment.

How she had loved money! His money, of which she had enjoyed such share as he saw fit to dole forth. All the stiffness, the induration of long custom was at war with her Impulse as she cried:

“But I want to go! What do you mean by staying here?”

“But I want to stay,” he said imperiously, “and that is what I mean, and all I mean.”

This was hardly comprehensive. He could scarcely control the rage that from the first of this ill-omened detention had possessed him upon the discovery of her lingering interest in the face of her old lover—a simple matter and explicable; without latent significance it would have been in the mind of any other man. Had it involved no sequence of subsequent events even he, perhaps, would have brought himself to let it pass unconsidered. He could not expect her to forget the fashion of Randal Ducie’s features, and the presence of the twin brother conjured up his face anew—his face which she had subtly distinguished from its counterpart. That revolted his pride. His wife must have no thought, no care, no memory, even, for aught save him! But her protest as to his ownership of Duciehurst, her revolt against owing any phase of her prosperity to the misfortunes of the Ducies, argued latent sensitiveness, an unprobed wound that he had not suspected, thoughts that he could not divine, memories that he did not share. Never, in all his experience of her, had her individuality, or even a question of his authority, been asserted save since that remembered face reappeared, affecting their matrimonial accord—he, imperious to command, from his plenitude of wealth and power, she eager to fawn and obey.

“You don’t consider me at all. You don’t consult my wishes.”

“I do better, my love. I consult our mutual interests.”

“You treat me like a child, an idiot! You let me know nothing of our plans. Why should we not leave this battered old ruin with the rest of the passengers? How and when are we to leave? If, for nothing but to make a decent response to Aunt Dorothy’s questions, I ought to be told something. I hardly know how to face her.”

“Well I am not posing for that old darkey’s benefit,” he said, satirically smiling.

There was a pause full of expectancy.

“This battered old ruin!” he exclaimed. “It will be the finest mansion in Mississippi by the time I am through with it.”

He cast his imperative eyes in approval over the great spaces of its open apartments. “And you, my dear, will be proud to be its chatelaine, and dispense its hospitalities.”

“Never,” she cried impetuously—“an abasement of pride for me!”

He changed color for a moment, and then held his ground.

“The ante-bellum glories will be revived in a style that has not been attempted in this country.”

“The ante-bellum glories—that were the Ducies’,” she said, with a flushed face and a flashing eye.

He was of so imperious a personality that he seldom encountered rebuke or contradiction. He was of such potential endowments that effort was unknown and failure was annihilated in his undertakings. He scarcely understood how he should deal with this unprecedented insolence, this revolt on the part of the being who had seemed to him most devoted, most adoring. The incense of worship had been dear to him,—and now the worshiper had lapsed to revilings and sacrilege!

“Paula, you are a fool absolute,” he said roughly.

“Ah, no—not I—not I!” she cried significantly. She lifted her head with a quick motion. The boat at the landing was getting up steam. She heard the exhaust of the engines, then the sonorous beat of the paddles on the water, and the swishing tumult of the waves as the wheels revolved.

“They are going,” she cried, “and we are left!”

She turned to him in agitation. He stood, splendid in his arrogant assurance, in his unrelenting dominance, his fine presence befitting the great hall which he would so amply grace in its restored magnificence. It was well for him that he was so handsome. Such a man, less graciously endowed, would have been intolerable in his arrogance, his selfishness, his brutality.

He showed no interest in the departure at the landing; he knew, by the sound, that the steamboat was now well out in midstream, and he secretly congratulated himself upon the termination of this ill-starred revival of old associations with the Ducies. Never again should they cross his wife’s path. Never again should he submit to the humiliation imposed upon him by the revival of old memories which had incited in her this strange restiveness to his supreme control. She had been wont to hug her chains—not that he thus phrased the gentle constraints he had imposed, rather wifely duty, conjugal love, admiration, trust.

The steamboat was gone at length, and his wife, standing in the hall and looking through the wide doorless portal, had seen the last of the passengers. Looking with a strange expression on her strained face which he could not understand,—what series of mysteries had her demeanor set him to interpret during these few hours, she who used to be so pellucidly transparent! Looking with frowning brow and questioning intent eyes, then with a suddenly clearing expression and a vindictive glance like triumph, she turned away with an air of bridling dignity, as if the steamer and its passengers had no concern for her, and, the next moment, Randal Ducie ascended the steps and entered the hall.