This was what Arthur was thinking, sitting drearily, not among the ruins of his domestic happiness, but before the sunny, common-place, too trimly new and flimsy altar of those capricious deities who rule the hearth. He had not yet been six months married: but how the bloom had gone off all his hopes, and with how little confidence he regarded the future, which once had seemed to him so bright! And as he sat there, with his books thrown down at his elbow, and the “Times” thrust away from him upon the table, with a sort of loathing in his mind both of the studies which could now, he thought, do him no good if he returned to them, and of the public life, once certain, which now seemed to have become impossible and undesirable, he heard Mrs. Bates and Sarah Jane come in and the conversation that followed. Even now Arthur had sense enough (and it was creditable to him) to throw himself into no vulgar vituperation of his mother-in-law. The woman was well enough; she was kind, and almost fierce in independence, taking nothing from him, giving not receiving hospitality, and in no way disposed to encourage his wife in anything disagreeable to him. It was not Mrs. Bates that was in fault, but Nancy herself--she who had seemed to him such a lily of grace and sweetness among all these common-place people. She was so still, he believed; she was not like them, who were natural to their sphere, and suggested nothing better. He was faithful notwithstanding all imperfections to his first ideal of her; but her words thrilled through and through him, scarring him as with burning arrows. “He had not opened any doors to her. Oh, why did girls marry!” was this what his wife asked after five months of marriage with him? Arthur’s veins seemed to fill full as if some essence of pain had been poured into them. He darted up overcome by sharp misery and shame, and a passionate resentment which he could not restrain. It took him but a moment to throw open the folding doors. If one minute more had elapsed, it would have brought a second thought, but there was no interval in which this was possible. He threw open the door and stood looking at her, for the moment too tremulous and agitated to speak. She had put shame upon him before those women who were the only visitors she cared for. When she saw him, Nancy jumped up too and confronted him. “Well?” she said, loudly, with a sharp and tremulous voice of interrogation. What had he to say for himself? She had said nothing which she was not ready to stand to, which she would not defend with all her powers. No one had ever known Nancy to flinch. However hot and hasty had been her assertions, however lightly said, she had always stood up for them; and to such a palpable challenge and trumpet call to conflict, it was not likely she would give in now. He stood and looked at her for a moment almost wavering. It was not the first time she had said such things, why should he resent it so much more than usual?