down at "the little spot of a woman," as he called Crozier's wife.




CHAPTER XIV

AWAITING THE VERDICT

"You look quite settled and at home," the Young Doctor remarked, as he
offered Mrs. Crozier a chair. She took it, for never in her life had she
felt so small physically since coming to the great, new land. The
islands where she was born were in themselves so miniature that the minds
of their people, however small, were not made to feel insignificant. But
her mind, which was, after all, vastly larger in proportion than the body
enshrining it, felt suddenly that both were lost in a universe. Her
impulse was to let go and sink into the helplessness of tears, to be
overwhelmed by an unconquerable loneliness; but the Celtic courage in
her, added to that ancient native pride which prevents one woman from
giving way before another woman towards whom she bears jealousy,
prevented her from showing the weakness she felt. Instead, it roused
her vanity and made her choose to sit down, so disguising perceptibly the
disparity of height which gave Kitty an advantage over her and made the
Young Doctor like some menacing Polynesian god.

Both these people had an influence and authority in Mona Crozier's life
which now outweighed the advantage wealth gave her. Her wealth had not
kept her husband beside her when delicate and perfumed tyranny began to
flutter its banners of control over him. Her fortune had driven him
forth when her beauty and her love ought to have kept him close to her,