She must leave Stella and go back to her duties at the Manor; must teach the children of New Wanley; must love, honour, obey her husband. Returning from Exmouth, she was glad to see her house again; now she had rather a thousand times die than go back. Horror shook her like a palsy; all that she had borne for eighteen months seemed accumulated upon her now, waited for her there at Wanley to be endured again. Oh! where was the maiden whiteness of her soul? What malignant fate had robbed her for ever of innocence and peace? Was this fever or madness? She rose and flung her arms against a hideous form which was about to seize her. It would not vanish, it pressed upon her. She cried, fled to the door, escaped, and called Stella’s name aloud. A door near her own opened, and Stella appeared. Adela clung to her, and was drawn into the room. Those eyes of infinite pity gazing into her own availed to calm her. ‘Shall I send for some one?’ Stella asked anxiously, but with no weak bewilderment. ‘No; it is not illness. But I dread to be alone; I am nervous.’ ‘Will you stay with me, dear?’ ‘Oh, Stella, let me, let me! I want to be near to you whilst I may!’ Stella’s child slept peacefully in a crib; the voices were too low to wake it. Almost like another child, Adela allowed herself to be undressed. ‘Shall I leave a light?’ Stella asked. ‘No, I can sleep. Only let me feel your arms.’ They lay in unbroken silence till both slept. CHAPTER XXIII In a character such as Mutimer’s there will almost certainly be found a disposition to cruelty, for strong instincts of domination, even of the nobler kind, only wait for circumstances to develop crude tyranny--the cruder, of course, in proportion to the lack of native or acquired refinement which distinguishes the man. We had a hint of such things in Mutimer’s progressive feeling with regard to Emma Vine. The possibility of his becoming a tyrannous husband could not be doubted by any one who viewed him closely.