When he ceased watching and listening, he wheeled round suddenly.
"What does it all mean ?" he demanded.

"Hang her foolish airs and graces._ Why_ won't she ride, for she evidently does not intend to." Hester laughed, a hard, short, savage little un-mirthful sound it was.
"No, she doesn't intend to," she answered, "for many a long day, at least, for many a month.

She has Sir Samuel Brent's orders to take the greatest care of herself." "Brent's?
Brent's ?" Hester struck her lean little hands together and laughed this time with a hint at hysteric shrillness.
"I told you so, I told you so!" she cried.

"I knew it would be so, I knew it! By the time she reaches her thirty-sixth birthday there will be a new Marquis of Walderhurst, and he won't be either you or yours." And as she finished, she rolled over on the sofa, and bit the cushions with her teeth as she lay face downwards on them.

"He won't be you, or belong to you," she reiterated, and then she struck the cushions with her clenched fist.
He rushed over to her, and seizing her by the shoulders shook her to and fro.
"You don't know what you are talking about," he said; "you don't know what you are saying." "I do! I do! I do!" she screamed under her breath, and beat the cushions at every word.