And I swear that I suspect her." He turned and walked to the door, while the indomitable Mrs.Tanberry, silenced for once, sank into the chair he had vacated.

Before he disappeared within the house, he paused.
"If Mr.Vanrevel has met my daughter," he said, in a thick voice, stretching out both hands in a strange, menacing gesture toward the town that lay darkling in the growing dusk, "if he has addressed one word to her, or so much as allowed his eyes to rest on her overlong, let him take care of himself!" "Oh, Robert, Robert," Mrs.Tanberry cried, in a frightened whisper to herself, "all the fun and brightness went out of the world when you came home!" For, in truth, the gayety and light-heartedness which, during the great lady's too brief reign, had seemed a vital adjunct of the house to make the place resound with music and laughter, were now departed.

No more did Mrs.Tanberry extemporize Dan Tuckers, mazourkas, or quadrilles in the ball-room, nor Blind-Man's Buff in the library; no more did serenaders nightly seek the garden with instrumental plunkings and vocal gifts of harmony.

Even the green bronze boy of the fountain seemed to share the timidity of the other youths of the town where Mr.Carewe was concerned, for the goblet he held aloft no longer sent a lively stream leaping into the sunshine in translucent gambols, but dribbled and dripped upon him like a morbid autumn rain.

The depression of the place was like a drape of mourning purple; but not that house alone lay glum, and there were other reasons than the return of Robert Carewe why Rouen had lost the joy and mirth that belonged to it.