"You speak to me like this?--you dare to!" she said in a low, furious voice. "You will learn to your sorrow what it means to flout me. You will pay for this, Constantia Hopkins, and pay to the last penny, to your everlasting shame and misery." Constance was too frightened by this change, by this white fury, which she had never seen before in her stepmother, to answer; but before she could have answered, Doctor Fuller, who had strayed that way in time to hear the last of Dame Eliza's tirade, Constance's retort, and this final threat, took Constance by the arm and led her away. "Quiet, my dear, quiet and calm, you know! Don't let yourself forget what is due to your father's wife, to yourself, still more to your conscience," he warned her. "And remember that a soft answer turneth away wrath." "Oh, it doesn't, Doctor Fuller, indeed it doesn't!" sobbed Constance, utterly unstrung. "I've tried it, tried it again and again, and it only makes the wrath turn the harder upon me; it never turns it away! Indeed, indeed I've faithfully tried it." "It's a hard pilgrimage for you at times I fear, Constance, but never turn aside into wrong on your part," said the good doctor, gently. "Oh, I'm sorry I flared up, I am sorry I spoke angrily. But my father! To blame him when he is so patient, and has so much to endure! Must I beg his wife's pardon?" said Constance, humbly. Doctor Fuller concealed a smile. Sorry as he was for Constance, and indignant at her stepmother's unkindness, it amused him to note how completely in her thoughts Constance separated herself from the least connection with her. "I think it would be the better course, my dear, and I admire you for being the one to suggest it," he answered, with an encouraging pat on Constance's sleeve. "Well, I will. I mean to do what is right, and I will," Constance sighed. "But I truly think it will do no good," she added. "Nor I," Doctor Fuller agreed with her in his thoughts, but he took good care not to let this opinion reach his lips. CHAPTER IV The First Yuletide Constance had a tender conscience, quick to self-blame. She was unhappy if she could impute to herself a fault, ill at ease till she had done all that she could to repair wrong. Although her stepmother's dislike for her, still more her open expression of it, was cruelly unjust and prevented all possibility of love for her, still Constance deeply regretted having spoken to her with lack of respect. But when she made humble apology for the fault and begged Mrs. Hopkins's pardon with sweet sincerity, she was received in a manner that turned contrition into bitterness. Dame Eliza looked at her with a cold light in her steely blue eyes, and a scornful smile. Plainly she was too petty herself to understand generosity in others, and construed Constance's apology into a confession of fear of her.