"Stop there!" she said quickly, her eyes flashing as she spoke--"My ideas have been repugnant to you, you say? What have _you_ done, you as my husband, to change those ideas? Have you not the same base passions as I?--and do you not give way to them as basely? What have I seen in you from day to day that I should take you as an example? You are master here, and you rule with all the arrogance wealth can give,--you eat, drink and sleep,--you entertain your acquaintances simply that you may astonish them by the excess of luxury in which you indulge,--you read and smoke, shoot and ride, and there an end,--you are an ordinary, not an exceptional man. Do you trouble to ask what is wrong with _me_?--do you try, with the patience of a great love, to set before me nobler aims than those I have consciously or unconsciously imbibed?--do you try to lead me, an erring, passionate, misguided woman, into what I dream of as the light,--the light of faith and hope which alone gives peace?" And suddenly, burying her head in the pillows of the couch on which she leaned, she broke into a fit of smothered weeping. I drew my cigar from my mouth and stared at her helplessly. It was about an hour after dinner, and a warm soft autumnal evening,--I had eaten and drunk well, and I was drowsy and heavy-brained. "Dear me!" I murmured--"you seem very unreasonable, Sibyl! I suppose you are hysterical...." She sprang up from the couch,--her tears dried on her cheeks as though by sheer heat of the crimson glow that flushed them, and she laughed wildly. "Yes, that is it!" she exclaimed--"Hysteria!--nothing else! It is accountable for everything that moves a woman's nature. A woman has no right to have any emotions that cannot be cured by smelling-salts! Heart-ache?--pooh!--cut her stay-lace! Despair and a sense of sin and misery?--nonsense!--bathe her temples with vinegar! An uneasy conscience?--ah!--for an uneasy conscience there is nothing better than sal volatile! Woman is a toy,--a breakable fool's toy;--and when she _is_ broken, throw her aside and have done with her,--don't try to piece together the fragile rubbish!" She ceased abruptly, panting for breath,--and before I could collect my thoughts or find any words wherewith to reply, a tall shadow suddenly darkened the embrasure of the window, and a familiar voice enquired-- "May I, with the privilege of friendship, enter unannounced?" I started up. "Rimânez!" I cried, seizing him by the hand. "Nay, Geoffrey, my homage is due here first,"--he replied, shaking off my grasp, and advancing to Sibyl, who stood perfectly still where she had risen up in her strange passion--"Lady Sibyl, am I welcome?" "Can you ask it!" she said, with an enchanting smile, and in a voice from which all harshness and excitement had fled; "More than welcome!" Here she gave him both her hands which he respectfully kissed. "You cannot imagine how much I have longed to see you again!"