_Sent for!_ _Who_ sent for you ?" She sat down feebly.

A horrible suspicion turned her faint.
"_Who_ sent for me ?" he said venomously.

"Why am I here ?" He tore some letters out of his pocket, and thrust them into her hands.
Always sensitive to a slight, he was infuriated by the low cunning, the desire to humiliate him, with which he imagined he had been treated.
Others could be humiliated as well as himself.
"Read them," he said savagely, and he walked away from her, and stood by the window with his back to her.
Magdalen read them slowly, the three letters, her father's, Aunt Mary's, Aunt Aggie's.

Then she put them back into their envelopes and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
Humiliation, shame, despair, the anguish of wounded love, she saw them creep towards her.

She saw them crouch like wild beasts ready to spring, their cruel eyes upon her.