"Quarrel with me? Why should you do that?" said Marie quietly. "Oh, for a hundred reasons, my sweet sister. For one, because it is so long since you and I had a good scold. For another, because it was so underhanded of you to hold back when dear aunties wanted us to marry well." "Don't be foolish, Clo!" said Marie. "Let us talk of something else." "Yes, we will by-and-by, my sweet sissy; but it was shabby of you to let me marry my old man, and then take advantage of my being fast to make up to my former beau." "Can such talk as this benefit either of us?" said Marie, flushing. "Surely it is beneath your dignity as a wife to speak as you do." "Dignity? Pooh! Women who marry as we have done, for money, have no dignity--they have sold it." "Clotilde!" "Well, it's quite true, and you know it. Trash! As if we either of us ever had any. It was nipped in the bud by our dear aunts. No, my dear Rie, we have no dignity, either of us. Slaves have no such commodity. We are only white slaves, the property of the dreadful old men who took a fancy to us and bought us!" "For heaven's sake, Clo, be silent," cried Marie, who had to fight hard to keep down her agitation. "This is cruel?" "Well, what if it is? Why should you not feel it as well as I? You hate and despise your husband as much as I do mine, and though you are so quiet and so shy, Rie, you mean to take your revenge; and why not?" "I do not understand you," exclaimed Marie. "Bah! That you do, and I know it. I am not so mad as to believe in your smooth ways and sham fondness for that old man." "Clotilde, I will not sit and listen to you," cried Marie. "Your words are disgraceful." "Better speak plain than be smug and smooth and secretive, you handsome hypocrite! There, it won't do, Rie. You may as well drop the veil before me. All this wonderful show of modesty and mock devotion is thrown away." "Are you going out of your senses?" said Marie hoarsely. "Half-way," was the reply. "It is enough to madden any woman, to be sold as I was." "You accepted Mr Elbraham of your own free will," said Marie indignantly, "and it is your duty to remember that you are his wife." "Is it?" cried Clotilde angrily, and speaking as if she were fanning her temper to raging point. "I know what my duty is to my slave-owner better than you can tell me, madam; but, clever as you are, you did not keep out of the marriage mess." "What do you mean?" "What do I mean?" cried Clotilde, who was excited with the wine she had drunk, and her desire to sting her sister to the quick. "Why, you did not suppose I was going to sell myself for a position and let you hang back and marry the man I loved." "The man you loved?" said Marie, turning very pale. "Yes, the man I loved--Marcus Glen. He loved me, and you knew it, and hung back always, with your soft, cat-like ways, trying to win him from me." "It is not true," cried Marie.