It
is all on the surface. I always know when she is thinking about her
husband or child, because her face gets rigid; she looks then as she
used to look after her child died, as though she didn't care what
became of her and she would just as lieve kill herself as not. I don't
think she will ever let herself love any one again. She has a horror
of it. She is much more likely to go in for ambition, or duty, or
self-sacrifice."
They rode on for a while in silence, Carrington perplexed by the
problem how two harmless people such as Madeleine and he could
have been made by a beneficent Providence the sport of such cruel
tortures; and Sybil equally interested in thinking what sort of a
brother-in-law Carrington would make; on the whole, she thought
she liked him better as he was. The silence was only broken by
Carrington's bringing the conversation back to its starting-point:
"Something must be done to keep your sister out of Ratcliffe's
power. I have thought about it till I am tired. Can you make no
suggestion?"
No! Sybil was helpless and dreadfully alarmed. Mr. Ratcliffe came
to the house as often as he could, and seemed to tell Madeleine
everything that was going on in politics, and ask her advice, and
Madeleine did not discourage him. "I do believe she likes it, and
thinks she can do some good by it. I don't dare speak to her about
it. She thinks me a child still, and treats me as though I were
fifteen. What can I do?"
Carrington said he had thought of speaking to Mrs.
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