“You shan’t then!” she cried, with redoubled heat. “Go--wherever you like for me. Oh, yes, go back to your family that you’re so fond of. You and your friends do nothing but despise me, even a bit of a schoolmaster’s wife! Don’t hold me, don’t keep me back, mamma. I’ll not be left, whatever happens; it’s me that will go, and he can do what he pleases. Don’t I tell you! Nobody shall hold me, nobody shall keep me in one place rather than another against my will. But I shan’t stay to be forsaken. Oh, don’t think it, Arthur! It’s me that will go.” “I have said nothing about forsaking you,” he said; but he was wearied out with such struggles, and he made no appeal to her to stay. This decided Nancy. She rushed impetuously from the room, leaving them all staring at each other, without giving a word of explanation. Mrs. Bates, whose face was somewhat blank, called to Sarah Jane to follow her sister, and herself turned to Arthur with an attempt at a smile. “It will soon be over now,” she said. “You mustn’t be hard upon her, Arthur. For all we know, there may be something working with her that she can’t resist. Young women have queer ways, and you can’t tell what’s the cause of it till after. Don’t you mind; go back to your books, there’s a dear, and take no notice. She’ll have a good cry, and she’ll come to herself, and you mustn’t mind.” It was not this address that quieted him; but what could he do? The position was so impossible that he was glad to withdraw from it. It was worse than ever, now that one of these altercations had taken place before witnesses; he went back sadly to his fire and sat down again, blaming himself for the exasperation which had made him speak. Probably Mrs. Bates was right, and it was all over. She might come downstairs, looking as if nothing had happened, or she might come down penitent, as she sometimes did; and this got the better of him at once. But anyhow, he would not insist upon continuing the altercation, he was too glad that it was over. He sat down, sighing, and drearily drew towards him the Demosthenes that lay on the table. How unimportant all that dead eloquence was, side by side with living passion! The petty stir of domestic dissensions was too near to let him hear the ring of the old disputations, the flow and flood of the old eloquence. Nancy’s voice, in all the warmth of passion, rang more clear on the ear than the greatest of orators. He sat with his nerves all thrilling, and his mind vainly striving to get a little instruction through his eyes. Those eyes read easily enough, hot though they were with the strain they had been subjected to, but the mind received no impression. It was more busy in his ears, listening to what was going on. He heard the hasty sound of Nancy’s footstep upstairs; then he heard her come down, and there were voices in the little hall, confused and undertoned, one voice mingling with another; and then there was the sound of the hall-door closing. He