"Till I came?" echoed the governess. "Till then it was the worthy abbe's tact that kept things going, no thanks to you. One of the few just rules of this bad world is that as we make our bed we lie on it. Your bed is full of creases? Too late, my dear, to smooth them. So I am the kill-joy, am I? Ask your husband whether he was ever so happy as since my coming? You poor, puling, whining bat!" pursued Aglae, surveying her victim with withering scorn. "You could not perceive that natures such as his require a master--a strong hand to lead, an iron will to guide, a whip to drive, if need be. Here is the hand to which he has learnt to cling and shall cling to--to the end." Mademoiselle flourished the large square-fingered hand so close to the marquise's face that she recoiled. "Why, even your children care more for me than you," she scoffed. Pin No. 3. "No doubt I have bewitched them? You should get me burned as a sorceress, and start your life afresh. I freely give you this advice, so never say I am ill-natured. Puling and whining adds loathing to indifference. Cheerfully accept the fate you've carved, and make the best of it. Now you must really excuse me; I must dress, for I never keep the marquis waiting;" and with that she firmly pushed the marquise from the room and slammed the door in her face. It was cruelly put, but true--all of it. With sinking heart the pale chatelaine admitted it was true. Too late now for remedy. The woman had taken Clovis in that powerful hand of hers, and twisted him round her little finger. Would it be of any use to make the appeal to him from which she had shrunk so long? No. The woman had laid stress on the fact that he had come actually to avoid her presence, would not even sit at table with her. Nothing short of absolute aversion could deprive her thus of every privilege of wife and mother. What had she done to deserve it? Painfully the chatelaine reviewed her empty life. If she had gone too far with one of the Paris swains she could not have been more completely ostracised. He was indifferent even then, heeding not her incomings or outgoings, and yet he must once have cared a little for his young wife, for then his eyes were sometimes fixed on her with genuine satisfaction. Never now. By what intangible, invisible degrees had things come to this grievous pass? Must she take the woman's advice, and strive to look with cheerfulness on the inevitable? A wife, yet no wife! What was to be the end of it? Only twenty-five years old. How wide a waste of barren dreariness in front ere she might hope for rest.