Daniel walked past her out of the room without a word. But Fanchon followed him to the door, white with rage. “_Mon Dieu!_ You needn’t feel like that!” she cried shrilly. “She says she’s sorry for you because you’re a cripple.” Daniel did not pause. He heard her, but he went on, toiling slowly upward. He never once looked back at the little creature in the doorway, but went steadily on with a white face and haggard eyes. XIII FANCHON did not go up-stairs. She flung herself face downward on the lounge in the library and writhed there, beating the old silk cushions with her small, furious fists. In the bitterness of her heart she thought she hated them all, every Carter who was ever born! Because she was so angry, so wilfully hurt, she had wreaked her vengeance upon Daniel. She had told him a falsehood, and now, thinking of it, she tore at the cushions and wept hot tears. She had no idea why she had done it. She hated Virginia Denbigh, because she knew the Carters loved Virginia. They had wanted William to marry her, and she believed they were making William hate his wife. She believed it from the bottom of her soul. But why had she struck at Daniel? Perhaps it was because he was William’s brother; perhaps it was because Fanchon had divined that he loved Virginia. Virginia, with her calm, lovely face, had become a nightmare to Fanchon. She quarreled with her husband, and she goaded and teased him, because the Carters did not like her, because their attitude was so superior. Then she laid it all to Virginia! Fanchon had done nothing lately but quarrel with William. He had objected to Corwin, had forbidden her to have him at the house. Fanchon, who feared Corwin, might have rejoiced had she not resented her husband’s tone. He had been set on, she thought, by Mr. Carter. Since that fatal dance Mr. Carter had been coldly civil. He hadn’t considered it his duty to scold his daughter-in-law, but he snubbed her. Fanchon, carrying her head high, had nevertheless been cut to the heart by it. She loved admiration, she loved applause, she lived on excitement, and she had none of these things, unless she counted the admiration of Leigh and Emily--two children, as she thought scornfully, who didn’t know any better! As she lay there on the old lounge, strange, ancestral passions stirred in her, wild impulses of rage and melancholy. She had had a bitter time. The very place was intolerable; she hated it, and she knew that the place hated her. The stodgy, monotonous domestic life--she had to face that, too--three meals a day with the Carters! If they had liked her, if they had even made her welcome and forgiven her unconventional ways, it might have been different, she thought; but now she hated them. She knew that Mrs. Carter had seen her in the church lane with Corwin. Mrs. Carter had no idea of the quarrel she had with Corwin, or her fear of him, but she must think ill of her and run home to tattle about it!