or bind him to his wife. Wretched as this condition of life was, it
might at least have settled into a monotonous calm, undisturbed by
strife, but for the molesting "sympathy" of the Baroness.

"Poor thing, here you are alone again," she would say on entering the
house where Mabel lounged or lolled, quite content with her situation
until the tone and words of her stepmother aroused a resentful
consciousness of being neglected. Again the Baroness would say:

"I do think you are such a brave little darling to carry so smiling a
face about with all you have to endure." Or, "Very few wives would
bear what you bear and hide every vestige of unhappiness from the
world. You are a wonderful and admirable character in my eyes." Or,
"It seems so strange that your husband does not adore you--but men
are blind to the best qualities in women like you. I never hear Mr
Cheney praising other women without a sad and almost resentful
feeling in my heart, realising how superior you are to all of his
favourites." It was the insidious effect of poisoned flattery like
this, which made the Baroness a ruling power in the Cheney household,
and at the same time turned an already cold and unloving wife into a
jealous and nagging tyrant who rendered the young statesman's home
the most dreaded place on earth to him, and caused him to live away
from it as much as possible.

His only child, Alice, a frail, hysterical girl, devoid of beauty or
grace, gave him but little comfort or satisfaction. Indeed she was
but an added disappointment and pain in his life. Indulged in every
selfish thought by her mother and the Baroness, peevish and petulant,
always ailing, complaining and discontented, and still a victim to
the nervous disorders inherited from her mother, it was small wonder