"You were ready to play Lady Bountiful to me, to give of your charity, to make yourself feel very noble. That was it. And now----" His voice became more vehement. "And now, look into your heart, look close! Look, look! What's in your heart now? You say I've cheated you. It's true. Is that why you're angry, is that why you won't live with me? No, by heaven, not that, or anything of the kind! Will you have the truth?" Again she made no answer. She waited for his words. "Are you rejoiced that mine's my own again, that I'm back in my place, that I'm Tristram of Blent, that it belongs to me? That I take it by my own incontestable right and not of your hand, by your bounty and your charity? Are you so rejoiced at that that you can forgive me anything, forgive the man you love anything? Yes, you do love me--You're welcome to that, if you think it makes it any better. It seems to me to make it worse. No, you can't forgive me anything, you can't forgive the man you love! Why not? I'll tell you why! Shall I? Shall I go on?" She bowed her head and clasped her hands together. "You hate my having come to my own again. You hate its being mine by right and not by your bounty. You hate being Lady Tristram only because I've chosen to make you so. And because you hate that, you won't forgive me, and you say you won't live with me. Yes, you're angry because I've come to my own again. You hate it. Look in your heart, I say, and tell me that what I say isn't true, if you can." She made no answer still. He came a step closer and smote his fist on the palm of his other hand, as he ended: "You called me a liar. I was a liar. But, by God, you're a curmudgeon, Cecily!" For a moment longer she looked at him, as he stood there in his scornful anger. Then with a low moan she hid her face in her hands. The next minute he turned on his heel, left her where she sat, and strode off into the house. Mina and Neeld--now at their sweets--heard his step and exchanged excited glances. He walked up to the head of the table, to Cecily's chair, plumped down into it, and called out to Mason, "Something to eat and some champagne." "Yes, sir," said Mason in a flurry. "Oh, by-the-bye, you can say 'my Lord' again. The lawyers blundered, and there's been a mistake." The astonished Mason began to express felicitations. Harry was petulantly short with him. "Oh, shut up that, my dear man, and give me some champagne." He drank a glass off and then observed, "I hope you two have had a decent dinner?" He had the manner of a host now. "I--I hadn't much appetite," stammered Neeld. "Well, I'm hungry anyhow," and he fell to on his beef, having waved soup and fish aside impatiently. "Tell them all downstairs what I've told you, Mason, but for heaven's sake don't let there be any fuss. Oh, and I suppose you'd better keep something hot for Lady Tristram." Mason's exit was hastened by the consciousness of his commission. The moment he was gone Mina broke out: "Where's Cecily?"