Just then, while Hamerton retired somewhat sick at heart, and seated himself near the door of the conservatory to recover, cursing as he did so the sharp, scolding tones of Mr. Trevanion going on with his grievances, Rosalind, standing against the pillar, was startled by something like a step or faint stir outside, and then the sound, which would have been inaudible to faculties less keen and highly strung, of the handle of the glass door. It was turned almost noiselessly and some one came in. Some one. Whom? With a shiver which convulsed her, Rosalind watched: this dark figure might be any one--her mother’s maid, perhaps, even Russell, gone out to pry and spy as was her way. Rosalind had to clutch the pillar fast as she watched from behind while the new-comer took a shawl from her head, and, sighing, arranged with her hands her head-dress and hair. Whatever had happened to her she was not happy. She sighed as she set in order the lace upon her head. Alas! the sight of that lace was enough, the dim light was enough: no one else in the house moved like that. It was the mother, the wife, the mistress of Highcourt, Madam Trevanion, whom all the country looked up to for miles and miles around. Rosalind could not speak. She detached her arms from the pillar and followed like a white ghost as her stepmother moved towards the drawing-room. In the night and dark, in the stormy wind amid all those black trees, where had she been? CHAPTER III. “I married her without a penny,” Mr. Trevanion was saying. “I was a fool for my pains. If you think you will purchase attention and submission in that way you are making a confounded mistake. Set a beggar on horseback, that’s how it ends. A duke’s daughter couldn’t stand more by her own way; no, nor look more like a lady,” he added with a sort of pride in his property; “that must be allowed her. I married her without a penny; and this is how she serves me. If she had brought a duchy in her apron, or the best blood in England, like Rosalind’s mother, my first poor wife, whom I regret every day of my life-- O-h-h!--so you have condescended, Madam, to come at last.”