"The system pursued towards him is altogether unkind," persisted Mrs. Chattaway. "Indulgences dealt out to our own children are denied to him. When I think that he might be the true master of Trevlyn Hold----" "I will not listen to this," interrupted Miss Diana. "What has come to you to-night?" A shiver passed over the frame of Mrs. Chattaway. She was sitting on a low toilette chair covered with white drapery, her head bent on her hand. By her reply, which she did not look up to give, it appeared that she took the question literally. "I feel the pain more than usual; nothing else. I do feel it so sometimes." "What pain?" asked Miss Diana. "The pain of remorse: the pain of the wrong dealt out to Rupert. It seems greater than I can bear. Do you know," raising her feverish eyes to Miss Diana, "that I scarcely closed my eyelids last night? All the long night through I was thinking of Rupert: fancying him lying outside on the damp grass; fancying----" "Stop a minute, Edith. Are you seeking to blame your husband to me?" "No, no; I don't wish to blame any one. But I wish it could be altered." "If Rupert knows the hour for coming in--and it is not an unreasonable hour--it is he who is to blame if he exceeds it." Mrs. Chattaway could not gainsay this. In point of fact, though she found things grievously uncomfortable, wrong altogether, she had not the strength of mind to say _where_ the fault lay, or how it should be altered. On this fresh agitation, the coming in at half-past ten, she could only judge as a vacillating woman. The hour, as Miss Diana said, was not unreasonable, and Mrs. Chattaway would have fallen in with it, and approved her husband's judgment, if Rupert had only obeyed the mandate. If Rupert did not obey it--if he somewhat exceeded its bounds--she would have liked the door to be still open to him, and no scolding given. It was the discomfort that worried her; mixing itself up with the old feeling of the wrong done to Rupert, rendering things, as she aptly expressed it, more miserable than she could bear. "I'll talk to Rupert to-morrow morning," said Miss Diana. "I shall add my authority to Chattaway's, and tell him that he _must_ be in." It may be that a shadow of the future was casting itself over the mind of Mrs. Chattaway, dimly and vaguely pointing to the terrible events hereafter to arise--events which would throw their consequences on the remainder of Rupert's life, and which had their origin in this new and ill-omened order, touching his coming home at night. "Edith," said Miss Diana, "I would recommend you to become less sensitive on the subject of Rupert. It is growing into a morbid feeling." "I wish I could! It does grow upon me. Do you know," sinking her voice and looking feverishly at her sister, "that old impression has come again! I thought it had worn itself out. I thought it had left me for ever."