"What would you have me do then?" demands he, rising here and confronting her. There is a good deal of venom in his handsome face, but Lady Baltimore braves it. "I would have you act as an honorable man," says she, in a clear, if icy tone. "You go pretty far, Isabel, very far, even for a sister," says he presently, his face now white with rage. "A moment ago I gave you some sound advice. I give you more now. Attend to your own affairs, which by all account require looking after, and let mine alone." He is evidently furious. His sister makes a little gesture towards the door. "Your taking it like this does not mend matters," she says calmly, "it only makes them, if possible, worse. Leave me!" CHAPTER XXVI. "AT SIXES AND SEVENS." Pol.--"What do you read, my lord?" Ham.--"Words, words, words." She sighs heavily, as the door closes on her brother. A sense of weakness, of powerlessness oppresses her. She has fought so long, and for what? Is there nothing to be gained; no truth to be defended anywhere, no standard of right and wrong. Are all men--all--base, selfish, cowardly, dishonorable? Her whole being seems aflame with the indignation that is consuming her, when a knock sounds at the door. There is only one person in the house who knocks at her boudoir door. To every one, servants, guests, child, it is a free land; to her husband alone it is forbidden ground. "Come in," says she, in a cold, reluctant tone. "I know I shall be terribly in your way," says Baltimore, entering, "but I must beg you to give me five minutes. I hear Beauclerk has returned, and that you have seen him. What kept him?" Now Lady Baltimore--who a moment ago had condemned her brother heartily to his face--feels, as her husband addresses her, a perverse desire to openly contradict all that her honest judgment had led her to say to Beauclerk. That sense of indignation that was burning so hotly in her breast as Baltimore knocked at her door still stirs within her, but now its fire is directed against this latest comer. Who is he, that he should dare to question the honor of any man; and that there is annoyance and condemnation now in Baltimore's eyes is not to be denied. "The weather," returns she shortly. "By your tone I judge you deem that an adequate excuse for keeping Miss Kavanagh from her home for half a day and a night." "There was a terrible storm," says. Lady Baltimore calmly; "the worst we have had for months." "If it had been ten times as bad he should, in my opinion, have come home." The words seem a mere repetition to Lady Baltimore. She had, indeed, used them to Beauclerk herself, or some such, a few minutes ago. Yet she seems to repudiate all sympathy with them now. "On such a night as that? I hardly see why. Joyce was with an old friend. Mrs. Connolly was once a servant of her father's, and he----" "Should have left her with the old friend and come home."