Mrs Tresham, putting her little ones to rest, feels also that, except for them, she would lay down her existence. She is utterly sick and wearied of her life. She is almost cross with Wilfrid and Bertie and Fred, because they will bolster one another, instead of lying down in their cots and going to sleep like pattern boys. For Baby Roland is whimpering for the breast, and two-year-old May is fractious with the pain of cutting her double teeth. Lily, her mother’s help and companion, is the only one that waits patiently until her turn arrives to be undressed. But when the rest are at last subdued, or satisfied, and Juliet Tresham turns to attend to her eldest daughter, her trembling fingers have busied themselves but for a few seconds with strings and buttons, before her arms are cast around the child, and she bursts into a storm of tears. ‘Mamma, why do you cry?’ asks Lily anxiously. ‘Oh, Lily, Lily! It is not my fault—it is not my fault.’ God help her, poor Juliet, it is not! Almost a girl in years, yet laden with cares such as few wives in her position are ever called upon to bear, she has sunk beneath the weight of an overwhelming load. Health and energy have failed her, and her husband’s patience has not proved equal to the occasion, and so irritability and discontent have crept in on the one hand, and disgust and indifference on the other. And yet they loved each other once, oh! so dearly, and believed from their hearts they would have died sooner than give up their mutual affection. But Mrs Tresham does not cry long. She persuades herself that the man downstairs is not worth crying for. ‘Get into bed, Lily, darling, or papa will be coming up to see what we are about.’ ‘I didn’t kiss papa nor wish him good-night,’ says the child. ‘No, no! it doesn’t signify. He doesn’t care for your kisses, nor for mine.’ She tucks her little girl into her bed and descends to the sitting-room again, feeling injured and hard of heart. Roland, as she enters, glances at her with a look of disgust. ‘Your hair is half way down your back.’ She laughs slightly, and, pulling out the fastenings of her hair, lets the rippling mass fall over her shoulders. Roland used to admire it so much in the days gone by, and say it was the only gold he cared to possess. Has she any hope that he will recall his former feelings at the sight of her loosely falling locks? If so, she is mistaken, for he only remarks coldly,— ‘I must beg you not to turn my room into a dressing-room. Go and put your hair up tidily. I hate to find it amongst my papers.’ ‘I believe you hate everything except your own comfort,’ she replies. ‘You’re the most selfish man I ever came across.’ ‘Perhaps so! But as long as this house belongs to me, you’ll be good enough to keep your opinions to yourself. If I can’t have comfort when I come home, I will at least have peace.’ ‘And much peace _I_ get, day or night.’ ‘It is by your own mismanagement if you do not.’