little warping eddy, a slimy under-draught which brought up silently the apologies, the reasons, the excuses for her. And if, by any impossibility, it should be so, then was it not essential that Rosalind, too pure to imagine, too young to know any evil or what it meant, or how it could be, should be withdrawn? But he was no more happy than Rosalind was, in the conflict of painful thoughts. “Yes; I mean more than that,” he resumed, after an interval. “I mean that this house, at present, is not a comfortable place. You must see now that even you cannot help Mrs. Trevanion much in what she has to go through. I feel myself entirely _de trop_. No sympathy I could show her would counter-balance the pain she must feel in having always present another witness of your father’s abuse--” “Sympathy!” said Rosalind, with surprise. “I never knew you had any sympathy. I have always considered you as on the other side.” “Does she think so?” he asked quickly, with a sharp sound of pain in his voice; then recollected himself in another moment. “Ah, well,” he said, “that’s natural, I suppose; the husband’s family are on his side--yes, yes, no doubt she has thought so: the more right am I in my feeling that my presence just now must be very distasteful. And even you, Rosalind; think what she must feel to have all that dirt thrown at her in your presence. Do you think the privilege of having a good cry, as you say, when you are alone together, makes up to her for the knowledge that you are hearing every sort of accusation hurled at her head? I believe in my heart,” he added hurriedly, with a fictitious fervor, “that it would be the greatest relief possible to her to have the house to herself, and see us all, you included, go away.”