"I am not at all tired.

I will sit up for him." "I think it will be useless, Grace," said Melbury, slowly.
"Why ?" "I have had a bitter quarrel with him; and on that account I hardly think he will return to-night." "A quarrel?
Was that after the fall seen by the boy ?" Melbury nodded an affirmative, without taking his eyes off the candle.
"Yes; it was as we were coming home together," he said.
Something had been swelling up in Grace while her father was speaking.
"How could you want to quarrel with him ?" she cried, suddenly.

"Why could you not let him come home quietly if he were inclined to?
He is my husband; and now you have married me to him surely you need not provoke him unnecessarily.

First you induce me to accept him, and then you do things that divide us more than we should naturally be divided!" "How can you speak so unjustly to me, Grace ?" said Melbury, with indignant sorrow.

"I divide you from your husband, indeed! You little think--" He was inclined to say more--to tell her the whole story of the encounter, and that the provocation he had received had lain entirely in hearing her despised.