"I wasn't speaking of going out, or anything of that kind. I dare say you are hardly up to that; but Dr Benyon says you would be ever so much better if you had some variety. When Gertrude comes, I want to arrange for going away somewhere." "I did not mean with regard to my health," said Eugenia. "I am well enough. I meant, considering other things; how recently--" she broke off, abruptly. "I would rather have been left alone a little longer; but, of course, a visit from your sister is different from any strangers coming." Captain Chancellor looked slightly uneasy; an intuitive feeling had warned Eugenia that something more was to come. "Gertrude is coming alone," he said; "but she asks me if we can have the Chancellor girls here a fortnight hence. They are going to stay with her at Winsley, and she would like them to be here part of the time. And of course, there is no possible objection to it? They know we are not going out just now. One or two small dinner-parties and a little croquet, or that sort of thing, will be all they will expect." Eugenia made no reply. Beauchamp began to get vexed. "You surely are not going to make a new trouble out of such a simple thing as this?" he exclaimed. "I don't want to make any trouble," she answered, drearily. "I must do what you tell me; but I do think it cruel of you to put this upon me. I don't expect you to sympathise in my greatest loss, but I _cannot_ understand your not caring about our poor little baby." Captain Chancellor gave vent to a muttered exclamation of impatience. "You are infatuated, Eugenia!" he exclaimed. "Do you never look at home as the cause of half the things you complain of? It is not true that I did not care about the poor little thing. I cared as much as was natural considering the circumstances, and that it was not a boy. But I detest exaggerated sentiment. And really, you have no right to reproach me. You must know you have no one to thank for this particular trouble but yourself; your own want of self-control and wild behaviour because I had prevented your going off to Wareborough in that insane way, were the cause of it all. I did not intend ever to have alluded to it; but you provoke me, I do believe, intentionally. I cannot express the least wish of late but you set yourself against it. It never seems to occur to you that I have my share of disagreeables to put up with. Do you think the sort of life I have had the last few months was what I looked forward to, or that any man would envy me a wife everlastingly in low spirits like you?"