Robert read the letter through, his face growing darker and darker as he read. When he had finished, he threw it on the fire, and Isabel rushed to the grate and rescued it, though it was smoked, and browned, and mostly illegible. But she clasped its tinder and ashes in her hands, cried over them, and finally left the room with the precious relics clasped to her heart. "Have you gone crazy too?" called her mother. "Let her alone!" said Robert. "And pray what is the matter with you?" "I am ashamed of the way you are behaving." "It is your sister of whom you must be ashamed. Her disgraceful marriage will kill me." "It is the result of your own doing, and withholding." "I am to bear the blame, of course. Poor mother!" "You never gave her any happiness, and when she got the opportunity she gave it to herself. That was natural." "She had all the happiness I had." "You had your husband, your family, your house, your servants, and your social duties. You were quite happy, but none of these things made happiness for your daughters. They wanted the pleasures of youth--gay company, gay clothing, travel and lovers, and none of these things you gave them. I was often very sorry for them." "Then why did you not help them yourself?" "Do you remember the year I begged you to take your daughters to Edinburgh and London, and offered to pay all expenses, and you would not do it?" "I did not wish to go to Edinburgh and London." "No, you wanted to go to Campbelton, and so you made your daughters go with you, though they hated the place. There Christina met this low fellow whom she married. She had no other lover. To the Campbelton rabble you sacrificed my sisters from their babyhood." "Robert Campbell! How dare you call my kindred 'rabble'?" "The name is good enough. Do you think I have forgotten how they treated my wife's clothing, and our rooms?" "What are you bringing up that old story for?" "It comes in naturally to-day, and I have not forgotten it. For your cruelty at that time, you are rightly served. Christina has avenged Theodora." He flung the last words at her over his shoulder as he left the room. She had no opportunity to answer them, indeed she was not able to do so. It seemed to her as if she had been stricken dumb from head to feet; as if her world was being swept away from her, and she could not protest against it. Isabel had left her in anger and opposition. Robert in reproach. As for Christina, she had smitten her on every side, and gone away without contrition and without reproof. And Robert's few words had been keener than a sword, for they were edged with Truth, and Truth drove them to her very soul.