"You have not even acknowledged it?" she asked, timidly. "A line--in the third person." "Edward thinks Lady Coryston most unwise--" "So she is--most unwise!" cried Lord William, warmly. "Coryston has every right to complain of her." "You think she has done wrong?" "Certainly. A woman has no right to do such things--whatever her son may be. For a woman to take upon herself the sole direction and disposal of such properties as the Coryston properties is to step outside the bounds of her sex; it is to claim something which a woman ought not to claim--something altogether monstrous and unnatural!" Lord William's thin features had flushed under a sudden rush of feeling. His wife could not help the sudden thought, "But if we had had an infidel or agnostic son?" Aloud she said, "You don't think his being such a Radical, so dreadfully extreme and revolutionary, justifies her?" "Not at all! That was God's will--the cross she had to bear. She interferes with the course of Providence--presumptuously interferes with it--doing evil that what she conceives to be good may come. A woman must persuade men by gentleness--not govern them by force. If she attempts that she is usurping what does not--what never can--belong to her." The churchman had momentarily disappeared in the indignant stickler for male prerogative and the time-honored laws of English inheritance. Lady William acquiesced in silence. She, too, strongly disapproved of Lady Coryston's action toward her eldest son, abominable as Coryston's opinions were. Women, like minorities, must suffer; and she was glad to have her husband's word for it that it is not their business to correct or coerce their eldest sons, on the ground of political opinions, however grievous those opinions may be. "I trust that Lady Coryston will not open on this subject to me," said Lord William, after a pause. "I am never good at concealing my opinions for politeness' sake. And of course I hold that Coryston is just as much in the wrong as she. And mad to boot! No sane man could have written the letter I received last week?" "Do you think he will do what he threatens?" "What--get up a subscription for Mr. and Mrs. Betts, and settle them somewhere here? I dare say! We can't help it. We can only follow our consciences." Lord William held himself erect. At that moment no one could have thought of "sweetness" in connection with the old man's delicately white features. Every word fell from him with a quiet and steely deliberation.