On the following day, at luncheon, France remarked:—

“I shall leave cards on the county. When they are returned, no one will be admitted. I do not wish you to have any relations with my neighbors.”

“I haven’t the least desire to have any relations with our neighbors.”

“And you will exercise on foot hereafter. I shall want all the mounts.”

“Very well.”

“If you wish to go to London, you will walk to Stanmore. I have given orders at the stables that none are to be taken from you, and the servants will take none to Stanmore.”

“Very well.”

Julia looked up, and their eyes met for the first time. In his was the strange glitter that had terrified her early in her married life and with which she had grown horribly familiar during her previous sojourn at White Lodge. It was an expression of utterly soulless mirth, such, no doubt, as lit the eyes of savages while watching their victims at the stake. She saw at once that he was devising new methods of tormenting her and debated whether it would be wiser to laugh at him or to let him think he was accomplishing his purpose. Being now poised and entirely without fear, it was her disposition to reveal herself, if only as a compensation for what he had made her suffer; but, on the other hand, she wanted what peace she could get; she felt no desire to vary the monotony of her life by egging him on to a point where, in spite of her pistols and her courage, he could easily, with his devilish resource, make her life unbearable. She believed that if she possessed her soul in patience, he would weary of the game and leave, even if he did not fulfil her hopes and go quite out of his mind first. She decided to temporize, and dropped her eyes.

“You make my life very hard, but I can only submit,” she murmured.

“I wish you never to forget that you are, so to speak, a prisoner of state.”

Julia controlled her muscles and replied demurely:?—

“The king commands. I have only to obey. I shall probably expire of ennui, but, after all, I am only a woman, so what matter?”

“Quite so!”

Julia raised her lashes. The dancing glitter in his eyes was appalling. There was no doubt in her mind at that moment that his complete loss of reason was but a question of months. So much the better if she must merely humor a madman; that, at least, was “managing” without loss of self-respect. She sighed, and looked wistfully out of the window.

“I suppose you do not intend to permit me to follow the hounds?”

“Certainly not. I intend that you shall remain within the walls of White Lodge for the rest of your life and do nothing.”

“Oh, very well.”

Having banished all expression from her eyes, she looked at him again. This time he was regarding her with condescension and approval. “You may go to your room,” he said.

She thanked him and retired in good order.

He did not address her again for quite a month. Then he informed her that there would be a large hunt breakfast at the house on the following morning, and commanded her to appear. He had already entertained a number of red-coated men at breakfast, and Julia wondered at their complaisance in admitting him to something like intimacy; for, in spite of the position he had enjoyed for a time as a respectable benedict and heir to a dukedom, he had never made a friend, and it was patent that he was swallowed with many grimaces. But she guessed that noblesse oblige had much to do with it. The man had been accepted when placed in a position by his powerful relative to press home his social rights; therefore, was it impossible, in his fallen fortunes, to retreat to their old position, unless he proved himself a flagrant cad. Besides, he had fought bravely in South Africa, and personal courage and patriotism compensate for many shortcomings. Moreover, he was an admirable cross-country rider. He was safe enough for the present.

She dressed herself with some excitement on the following morning, for it was long since gayety of any sort had entered her life. But when she stood in her house gown among some twenty men and women in pink coats and riding habits, all chattering of the prospective meet, and of the one two days before, she felt sadly out of it, and wished she had been permitted to remain in seclusion. It was nearly two years since she had presided at a hunt breakfast, and then she had worn her own habit, and been as keen for the chase as any of her guests. But as she stood with a group of women waiting for breakfast to be announced, and answering polite questions, assuring her indifferent neighbors that her frail health alone forbade her joining them in the field, she was astonished to find that she did not envy them, nor did she feel the least desire to race across the country after a frantic fox. It seemed such a futile attempt at self-delusion in the matter of pleasure. What had come over her? Had she seen too much of the serious side of life during her eight months in London?

If she had wondered at France’s benevolence in permitting her to meet his guests and preside at his table, she was not long receiving enlightenment. They sat opposite each other in the table’s width, and before ten minutes had passed, he opened upon her batteries which hardly could be called masked. She had almost forgotten him, and was laughing merrily at a sally of the good-natured youth who sat on her left, when France leaned across the table and said softly:?—

“Not so loud, my dear. You have forgotten your manners this last year. This is not Nevis.”

Julia was so completely taken by surprise that to her intense annoyance she colored violently. But she instantly understood his new tactics, and blazing defiance on him, regardless of consequences, turned to her neighbor. Whatever she might submit to in private, pride commanded that she hold her own in public.

But every time that she answered a remark addressed to her by some one opposite, his dry sarcastic glance crossed hers, and once he said, raising his voice: “Workin’ in a bonnet shop doesn’t improve manners, by Jove. But my wife is only a child yet, and my cousin Kingsborough and Lady Arabella worked too hard over her not to have been rewarded if she could have remained with them. Of course, I’m only a rough sailor.”

There was an intense and painful pause after this speech, although Julia paid no attention, and once more permitted her musical laugh, not the least of her charms, to ring out. She fancied this was the last time the county would honor White............