"Of course I am nobody in this house now," said the Marchioness in her last interview with her stepson. It is of no use to argue with an angry woman, and in answer to this Hampstead made some gentle murmur which was intended neither to assent or to dispute the proposition made to him. "Because I ventured to disapprove of Mr. Roden as a husband for your sister I have been shut up here, and not allowed to speak to any one." "Fanny has left the house, so that she may no longer cause you annoyance by her presence." "She has left the house in order that she may be near the abominable lover with whom you have furnished her." "This is not true," said Hampstead, who was moved beyond his control by the double falseness of the accusation. "Of course you can be insolent to me, and tell me that I speak falsehoods. It is part of your new creed that you should be neither respectful to a parent, nor civil to a lady." "I beg your pardon, Lady Kingsbury,"--he had never called her Lady Kingsbury before,--"if I have been disrespectful or uncivil, but your statements were very hard to bear. Fanny's engagement with Mr. Roden has not even received my sanction. Much less was it arranged or encouraged by me. She has not gone to Hendon Hall to be near Mr. Roden, with whom she had undertaken to hold no communication as long as she remains there with me. Both for my own sake and for hers I am bound to repudiate the accusation." Then he went without further adieu, leaving with her a conviction that she had been treated with the greatest contumely by her husband's rebellious heir. Nothing could be sadder than the last words which the Marquis spoke to his son. "I don't suppose, Hampstead, that we shall ever meet again in this world." "Oh, father!" "I don't think Mr. Spicer knows how bad I am." "Will you have Sir James down from London?" "No Sir James can do me any good, I fear. It is ill ministering to a mind diseased." "Why, sir, should you have a mind diseased? With few men can things be said to be more prosperous than with you. Surely this affair of Fanny's is not of such a nature as to make you feel that all things are bitter round you." "It is not that." "What then? I hope I have not been a cause of grief to you?" "No, my boy;--no. It irks me sometimes to think that I should have trained you to ideas which you have taken up too violently. But it is not that." "My mother--?" "She has set her heart against me,--against you and Fanny. I feel that a division has been made between my two families. Why should my daughter be expelled from my own house? Why should I not be able to have you here, except as an enemy in the camp? Why am I to have that man take up arms against me, whom I have fed in idleness all his life?" "I would not let him trouble my thoughts." "When you are old and weak you will find it hard to banish thoughts that trouble you. As to going, where am I to go to?" "Come to Hendon."