Too startled at first to be fully conscious how deeply she was wounded, Eugenia mechanically followed them to the porch, stood there till they had driven off, smiling and nodding farewell. And this was her first parting from her husband! When the pony-carriage was out of sight Eugenia went up to her own room, and, locking the door against all possibility of intrusion, wept the bitter tears of youth when it first experiences what it is to be repulsed and scorned by the one it had deemed all sympathy and devotion, when the first terrible suspicion creeps in that it has been deceived in its idol. For none of the small jars in Paris had ended like this; she had felt them acutely at the time, but they had invariably _been_ smoothed over again. But that Beauchamp should have spoken so harshly, so woundingly, just as he was leaving her, when there could be no opportunity of removing the sting his words had left--it was too cruel, and Eugenia's tears flowed afresh. In one respect she did him injustice. Before she was out of his sight her husband had repented of his harshness; the white, wounded look that had come over her sweet eager face followed him all the day, and had he not been afraid of Gertrude's making fun of him he would have turned back at the lodge and begged Eugenia to forgive him before he left her. Still, at the same time, he remained fully satisfied that he had had cause for annoyance, and he quite believed that in the end Eugenia, like the rest of her sex, would be none the worse for a few sharp words. By-and-by it occurred to Eugenia that her sister-in-law's criticism of her red eyes was by no means to be desired. She set to work to bathe them, therefore, and then, the more effectually to remove their traces, she put on her hat and went out for a stroll. How pretty it was out of doors! The house, quaint and irregular, with its gables and latticed windows, was thoroughly to Eugenia's liking; the grounds well kept, but not too modern in appearance to suit the ivy-grown Grange; the beauty of the midsummer sky, the fragrance of the sweet fresh summer-morning air, every object which caught her eye, every breath which wafted across her face seemed fall of harmony and content. "How I wish I could feel happy too!" thought Eugenia. And, after all, what a very small thing had caused her unhappiness, what a mere trifle had roused Beauchamp's displeasure! That was the worst of it, she thought; if so very little made him angry, how could she hope to avoid incessantly irritating him? Yet he was not an ill-tempered man exactly--not so much ill-tempered as exacting and prejudiced.