And then, all through the room, there is a horrible suppressed laugh.
The blood rushes in a fiery tide to the face of Sir Victor, and Lady
Helena outglows her crimson velvet gown. Ethel, with the youthful Lord
Verriker still hovering around her, has but one wild instinct, that of
flight. Oh! to be away, from these merciless people--from that bitter,
dagger-tongued Inez Catheron! She looks wildly at her husband. Must
she bear this? But his back is to her--he is wilfully blind and deaf.
The courage to take up the gauntlet for his wife, to make a scene, to
silence his cousin, is a courage he does not possess.

Under the midnight stars Lady Helena's guests drive home. In the
carriage of Sir Victor Catheron there is dead silence. Ethel,
shrinking from her husband almost as much as from his cousin, lies
back in a corner, pale and mute. Inez Catheron's dauntless black eyes
look up at the white, countless stars as she softly hums a tune. Sir
Victor sits with his eyes shut, but he is not asleep. He is in a rage
with himself, he hates his cousin, he is afraid to look at his wife.
One way or other he feels there must be an immediate end of this.

The first estrangement that has parted him and Ethel has come. He
hardly knows her to-night--her cold, brief words, her averted face,
her palpable shrinking as he approaches. She despises him, and with
reason, a man who has not the courage to protect his wife from insult.

Next day Lady Catheron declines to appear at either breakfast or
luncheon, and when, five minutes before dinner, Sir Victor and Miss
Catheron meet in the dining-room, she is absent still. He rings the
bell angrily and demands where she is.