“Miriam, I—­”

“Hear me out, if you please,” she interposed.  “Mamma’s heart has been nearly broken at the thought of this ill-assorted marriage, and I believe the excitement and grief would have killed her outright, if you had brought her,” with a withering glance at Virgie’s picture, “to Heathdale to reign as mistress.”

Sir William was tried almost beyond endurance.  It was more than a minute before he could control himself sufficiently to speak, after his sister’s insulting remarks regarding his marriage.

“Miriam,” he at length said, in a voice that made her quail in spite of her effrontery, “you will please never speak like this again; it is, both to my wife and me, an insult which I will not tolerate.  Virgie is a lady in every sense of the word; even my critical mother could pick no flaw in her were she to see her, and the moment that I am at liberty to do so I shall return to the United States and bring my darling back with me.  And let me here repeat what I said a while ago—­I expect and demand that she be received with all proper respect by the entire household.”

“The household knows nothing of your marriage.”

“What!” cried the young baronet, astonished.

“No one, save mamma and I, knows anything of this—­this alliance.”

“By whose authority have you kept such a matter secret?” Sir William demanded, in great wrath.

“We—­we thought it best,” faltered his sister, shrinking beneath his anger—­she had never seen him so aroused before.  “Mamma was so unhappy, and I was so—­so unreconciled, that we determined to wait until you wrote definitely regarding your coming.”

“You have overstepped all bounds, you have presumed beyond excuse,” retorted her brother, in a voice of thunder.  “I know that you are my senior by fifteen years, and as a boy I was taught to look up to you, and to render you the respect due an elder.  But I am a child no longer.  I am a man, and you forget that I am not only my own master, but the master of Heathdale as well.  I have a right to choose for myself in all matters, and you are not to consider that I am in leading strings, as I was before your marriage, when you exercised, to a certain extent, authority over me.  And now if—­I abhor thrifts, but I wish you to distinctly understand me—­if you cannot bring yourself to regard my marriage in a proper and sensible light, and make up your mind to receive my wife as becomes a sister of the house, the doors of Heathdale will henceforth be closed to you.”

Lady Linton was astounded at this outburst.

Her brother, heretofore, had always been a pattern of amiability and gentleness, and had allowed her to have her own way mostly in the house.  In minor matters she had always ruled him, and she had never imagined that he could rise to such a height as this.

She saw that she had gone too far, that she must change her tactics, or forever lose all influence with him, and make an enemy of him.