The Rector made a bow to me, and withdrew slowly, much agitated, and very nervous, as I could see. Miss Saville went more reluctantly. "It was a very strange thing to turn the Rector out of his own study for a secret conference," she muttered, as she went away. Saville laughed--"Though it will be worth their hearing, I'll warrant you do not tell them a word of it," he said, with the same coarse insinuation of something wrong or untruthful, which I remembered so well on that first day when he came to Cottiswoode. "They are very curious, the fools!--as if they had anything to do with it. Now, Mrs. Southcote, of Cottiswoode, are you ready to hear me?" I had drawn my chair away to the window, out of reach of his smoky atmosphere and his immediate presence--an artifice at which he laughed again. I bowed slightly in assent; and now he rose, and coming towards me, stood leaning upon the corner of the recess which inclosed the window, looking down into my face. "I hear that my friend Edgar and you don't get on together," said the man, with rude familiarity; "pity when such things arise in families--and generally very bad policy, too. But, however, that can't be helped in the present case. He's disposed to be master, I suppose; and, after all, though you've humbled your pride to marry him, you've not got Cottiswoode." "If you wish only to insult me," I said, starting from my chair, "not even for your good brother and sister's sake can I endure this wretched impertinence. How do you dare to speak in such a tone to me?" "I dare worse things than facing a pretty young lady," said Saville, with his insolent laugh, "but that is not the question, and you shall have none of my impertinence if you like it so little; but I thought you were too honest to sham a reason for this marriage of yours: however, as I have said, that is not the question. As for your family _happiness_, every clown in the district knows what that is, as, of course, you are aware. And if I had been you, I'd have stayed away, and not made a fool of myself by coming back." I said nothing. I felt my face burn, and there was an impulse of fury in my heart--fury, blind wild rage, murderous passion. I could have struck him down when he stood before me, with his odious sneer upon his face, but I did not move. I compressed my lip and clasped my hands together till the pressure was painful, but I made no other indication of how I felt the insult of his words. Yes, this was justice--I acknowledged it--my fitting punishment.