Catherine's incessant denunciations of his "sin" in marrying Diane
Wielitzska--poured upon him without stint throughout this first year of
his marriage--seemed to din in his ears anew. Such phrases as "selling
your soul," "putting a woman of that type in our sainted mother's
place," "mingling the blood of a foreign dancing-woman with our own,"
jangled against each other in his mind.

Had he really been guilty of a sin against his conscience--satisfied his
desires irrespective of all sense of duty?

He began to think he had, and to wonder in a disturbed fashion if God
thought so too. What was it Catherine had said? _"God has indeed taken
your punishment into His own Hands."_

Hugh was only too well aware of the facts which gave the speech its
trenchant significance. He himself had inherited owing to the death of
an elder brother in early childhood. But there was no younger brother
to step into his own shoes, and failing an heir in the direct line of
succession the title and entailed estate would of necessity go to Rupert
Vallincourt, a cousin--a gay and debonair young rake of much charm of
manner and equal absence of virtue. From both Catherine's and Hugh's
point of view he was the last man in the world fitted to become the head
of the family. Hence the eagerness with which they had anticipated the
arrival of a son and heir.

And now, prompted by Catherine's bitter taunt, the birth of a daughter
as his first-born--the first happening of the kind for eight successive
generations--appeared to Hugh in the light of a direct manifestation of
God's intention that no son born of Diane Wielitzska should be dowered