The transition, effected by the aid of his intense selfishness, from his former state of feeling towards Harriet, to one which required only the intervention of any active cause to become hatred, was not a difficult matter to a man like Routh. Having lost all her former charm, and much of her previous usefulness, she soon became to him a disagreeable reminder. Something more than that--the mental superiority of the woman, which had never before incommoded him, now became positively hateful to him. It carried with it, now that it was no longer his mainstay, a power which was humiliating, because it was fear-inspiring. Routh was afraid of his wife, and knew that he was afraid of her, when he had ceased to love her, after he had begun to dislike her; so much afraid of her that he kept up appearances to an extent, and for a duration of time, inexpressibly irksome to a man so callous, so egotistical, so entirely devoid of any sentiment or capacity of gratitude. Such was the position of affairs when George Dallas and Mr. Felton left London to join Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers at Homburg. From the time of his arrival, and even when he had yielded to the clever arguments which had been adduced to urge him to silence, there was a sense of insecurity, foreboding in Routh's mind; not a trace of the sentimental superstitious terror with which imaginary criminals are invested after the fact, but with the reasonable fear of a shrewd man, in a tremendously dangerous and difficult position, who knows he has made a false move, and looks, with moody perplexity, for the consequences sooner or later. "He must have come to England, at all events, Stewart," Harriet said to her husband, when he cursed his own imprudence for the twentieth time; "he must have come home to see his uncle. Mr. Felton would have been directed here to us by the old woman at Poynings, and we must have given his address. Remember, his uncle arrived in England the same day he did." "I should have sent him to George, not brought George to him," said Routh. "And there's that uncle of his, Felton; he is no friend of ours, Harriet; he does not like us." "I am quite aware of that," she answered; "civil as he is, he is very honest, and has never pretended to be our friend. If he is George's friend, and George has told him anything about his life since he has known us, I think we could hardly expect him to like us." Her husband gave her one of his darkest looks, but she did not remark it. Many things passed now without attracting her notice; even her husband's looks, and sometimes his words, which were occasionally as bitter as he dared to make them.