"The simplest thing possible--make over Tom's money to you. She doesn't consider, apparently, whether you are entitled to the whole of it, any more than she had previously guessed that, if your claim were just, you could have pushed it without her concurrence. She is a very intemperate person." Rose did not intend to comment on the situation, however warmly she might express herself over Electra's personal standpoint. "Electra did not strike me as intemperate," she said. "She seemed to me very collected, very cold and resolute." "Yes, but her reactions! they'd be something frightful. I can fancy that pendulum swinging just as far the other way. They are terrifying, those women." "How are they terrifying?" Governing the wild forces in herself at that minute, she felt as if all women were terrifying when they are driven too far, and that all men might well beware of them. MacLeod rose, and stretched himself upward in a muscular abandon. "Good-night, my dear," he said. "I'm going upstairs. I will see her again to-morrow. You need give yourself no uneasiness about the outcome. You needn't even concern yourself with the details. I shall arrange them with her." Rose was quickly upon her feet. She felt more his equal so than when he towered above her at that height. "If you see her," she threatened, "I will overturn everything." "No, no, you wouldn't. Run upstairs now and go to bed. You are overwrought. This whole thing has been a strain on you." "Yes." She spoke rapidly and in a low tone, fearing grannie's window above. "It has been a strain on me. But who brought it on? I did it myself. I must meet it. But I will not have you meddling with it. I will not." "Not to-night, at least," said MacLeod, with unblemished kindliness. "Don't do anything intemperate. But you won't. I know you too well." After a good-night she could not answer he went in and up the stairs. She could hear him humming to himself that gay little song. She stood there quite still, as if she were in hiding from him and he might return to find her. When the door closed above, she still stood there, her nails clasped into her palms. And for the instant she was not thinking of herself, but of Electra. It seemed to her that it would be necessary to protect Electra from his charm. Then she heard Peter whistling back again. She stepped down to the end of the veranda and stole across the orchard into the field. The night was still, yet invisible forces seemed to be whispering to one another. In the middle of the field she stopped, tempted to call to Osmond, knowing he was there. But because it was late, and because her thoughts were all a disordered and protesting turmoil, she turned about and fled home. XVIII