She got up and walked about the room in the flickering firelight, conscious of her heart-beats, and half-inclined to cry, if she could have chosen. But her eyes felt dry over it, as a matter of fact. She caught herself beginning to feel angry with Titus, convicted herself of it, and reprimanded the culprit severely. Idiot that she was, to be affected by mere unfounded gabble! For she was far from believing, all the while, that Charlotte had any faith in her own insinuations. She fully recognized that her friend's pleasure in dwelling on the constructive relations of Paul and Virginia, Paolo and Francesca, Adam and Eve, for that matter--anywhom male and female, anywhere--was only human sympathy, leavened with hysteria. Had she not helped her, _lubens et ex animo_, when the improper study of mankind seemed good to their hours of leisure? The study, that is, of man and womankind in braces, selected by the student? But when the model suggested for study was her own husband, in leash with a strange young lady, whom she had not seen, she felt the position of a philosophical analyst uncongenial. Why could she not be angry with Charlotte? That might have seemed the most natural safety-valve. Marianne had never read "Othello"--or much to speak of else--but she had seen it at the play. So she may easily have recalled Iago's cautions against the green-eyed monster that doth make the meat it feeds on, and compared it with the way her friend had somehow contrived to appear a warning voice, crying beware! to a suspicious soul adrift in a wilderness of its own unreason. She was not so very unlike the Moor in her ready acceptance of the character _her_ Iago had claimed for herself. Of course, Charlotte was a fool, and fanciful; but, equally of course, she was no mischief-maker. Why, see what a perfect faith she had in Titus's integrity! Marianne was angry with herself for allowing a doubt of it, without having the shrewdness to see that she never would have felt one if it had not been for Charlotte. In fact, left to herself in the growing darkness, to brood over her own scarcely fledged suspicion, she could not for the life of her have said what on earth began it all. She forgot all details of her conversation with Charlotte, and only knew that something in it had made her feel very uncomfortable. Really, one is sometimes inclined to believe that imps of darkness hang about, to run and help whenever they see a little bit of mischief brewing. CHAPTER X CHALLIS'S _adieu_ TO MISS ARKROYD. A LONG RIDE HOME, AND A COLD WELCOME. BUT IT WAS JOLLY TO BE BACK, AT ANY RATE. MISS ARKROYD'S MESSAGE DELIVERED