“It makes no difference whether you allow it or not,” she said, turning away with a contemptuous sniff.  “I’m my own mistress.”

“Do you mean to defy my authority, Zoe?” he asked, with suppressed anger.

“Yes, I do.  I’ll do anything in the world for love and coaxing, but I won’t be driven.  I’m your wife, sir, not your slave.”

“I have no desire to enslave you, Zoe,” he said, his tone softening, “but you are so young, so very young for a married woman, that you surely ought to be willing to submit to a little loving guidance and control.”

“I didn’t perceive much love in the attempt you made just now,” she said, seating herself and opening a book.

He watched her for a moment.  She seemed absorbed in reading, and he could not see that the downcast eyes were too full of tears to distinguish one letter from another.

He left the room without another word, and hardly had the door closed on him when she flung the book from her, ran into the dressing-room, and throwing herself on a couch, cried as if her heart would break.

“He’s all I have, all I have!” she moaned, “and he’s beginning to be cruel to me!  Oh, what shall I do! what shall I do!  Papa, papa, why did you die and leave your darling all alone in this cold world?”

She hoped Edward would come back presently, say he was sorry for his brutal behavior, and try to make his peace with her by coaxing and petting; but he did not, and after a while she gave up expecting him, undressed, went to bed and cried herself to sleep, feeling that she was a sadly ill-used wife.

Meanwhile Edward had returned to the library for a time, then gone into the family parlor, hoping and half expecting to find Zoe there with the rest; but the first glance showed him that she was not in the room.

He made no remark about it, but sitting down beside his mother, tried to interest himself in the evening paper handed him by his grandfather.

“What have you done with your wife, young man?” asked his sister Elsie sportively.  “We have seen nothing of her since supper.”

“I left her in her room,” he answered in a tone in which there seemed a shade of annoyance.

“Have you locked her up there for bad behavior?” asked Rosie, laughing.

“Why, what do you mean, Rosie?” he returned, giving the child a half-angry glance, and coloring deeply.

“Oh, I was only funning, of course, Ned.  So you needn’t look so vexed about it; that’s the very way to excite suspicion that you have done something to her,” and Rosie laughed gleefully.

But to the surprise of mother and sisters, Edward’s brow darkened, and he made no reply.

“Rosie,” said Violet, lightly, “you are an incorrigible tease.  Let the poor boy alone, can’t you?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Raymond,” he said, with a forced laugh, “but I wouldn’t have Rosie deprived of her sport.”

“I hope,” remarked Mrs. Travilla, with a kindly though grave look at her youngest daughter, “that my Rosie does not find it sport to inflict annoyance upon others.”