"Ay, ay, and when Necessity calls, none shall dare 'bring to _her_ feet excuse or prayer.' Your wife's flight was a necessity also. Keep that in your mind. You are sleepy, I see; don't look at the newspapers till the wonder is over." The newspapers easily got hold of the story, and each related the circumstance in its own way. Some plainly said domestic misery had driven the ill-used lady to flight; others spoke of her great beauty and wonderful voice, and made suspicious allusions to the temptations always ready to assail beauty and genius. None of them omitted the world-weary taunt of the mother-in-law, and some very broad aspersions were made on Mrs. Campbell's well-known impossible temper, and her hatred of all matrimonial intrusions into her family. The story of her eldest son's unsatisfactory marriage was recalled, his banishment and exile and supposed death. Christina's flight from her rich, titled lover to the poor man she preferred added a romantic touch; and the final tragedy of the disappearance of Robert Campbell's wife and son seemed to the majority proof positive that the trouble-making element was in the Campbell family, and rested in the hard, proud, scornful disposition of the mother, and mother-in-law. There was not a single paper that did not take a special delight in blaming Mrs. Traquair Campbell, but all, without exception, praised extravagantly the beauty, the sweet nature, and the genius of her wronged and terrorized daughter-in-law. Robert Campbell took no notice of anything, that either the newspapers or his mother said. One day Isabel showed him a remark concerning "the unhappy life of that unfortunate gentleman, the late amiable Traquair Campbell, Esq." "You ought to stop such shameful allusions, Robert," she said, "they make mother furious." He looked at her with eyes sad and suffering, and answered: "Neither you nor I, Isabel, can gainsay those words. They describe only too truly our father's position. He was amiable, and he was unhappy." "But, Robert, the insinuation is, that mother was to blame for our father's unhappiness." "She was. Such accusations are best unanswered. If we do not talk life into them, they will die in a few days."