She ought to have been subdued into silence by his first objection; but, on the contrary, she met his angry eyes with a look which was deprecating, but not abject, holding her little own. It was a long time since Waring had encountered anything which he could not subdue and put aside out of his path. But, he said to himself--all that long restrained and silent temper which had once reigned and raged within him, springing up again unsubdued--he might have known! The moment long deferred, yet inevitable, which brought him in contact once more with his wife, could bring nothing with it but pain. Strife breathed from her wherever she appeared. He had never been a match for her and her boy, even at his best; and now that he had forgotten the ways of battle--now that his strength was broken with long quiet, and the sword had fallen from his hand--she had a pull over him now which she had not possessed before. He could have done without both the children a dozen years ago. He was conscious that it was more from self-assertion than from love that he had carried off the little one, who was rather an embarrassment than a pleasure in those days--because he would not let her have everything her own way. But now, Frances was no longer a creature without identity, not a thing to be handed from one to another. He could not free himself of interest in her, of responsibility for her, of feeling his honour and credit implicated in all that concerned her. Ah! that woman knew. She had a hold upon him that she never had before; and the first use she made of it was to insult him--to send her son, whom he hated, for his daughter, to force him into unwilling intercourse with her family once more. Frances took the opportunity to steal away while her father gloomily pursued these thoughts. What a change from the tranquillity which nothing disturbed! now one day after another, there was some new thing that stirred up once more the original pain. There was no end to it. The mother’s letters at one moment, the brother’s arrival at another, and no more quiet whatever could be done, no more peace.