and yours the law of my life." Her lip curled in contemptuous anger. "You misunderstand me," said Hartley Emerson, speaking as calmly as was possible in this sudden emergency. "I did not refer specially to myself, but to all of our party, to whom you had given up your will in a promise to ride out with them, and to whom, therefore, you were bound." "An easy evasion," retorted the excited bride, who had lost her mental equipoise. "Irene," the young man spoke sternly, "are those the right words for your husband? An easy evasion!" "I have said them." "And you must unsay them." Both had passed under the cloud which pride and passion had raised. "Must! I thought you knew me better, Hartley." Irene grew suddenly calm. "If there is to be love between us, all barriers must be removed." "Don't say _must_ to me, sir! I will not endure the word." Hartley turned from her and walked the floor with rapid steps, angry, grieved and in doubt as to what it were best for him to do. The storm had broken on him without a sign of warning, and he was wholly unprepared to meet it. "Irene," he said, at length, pausing before her, "this conduct on your part is wholly inexplicable. I cannot understand its meaning. Will you explain yourself?" "Certainly. I am always ready to give a reason for my conduct," she replied, with cold dignity. "Say on, then." Emerson spoke with equal coldness of manner. "I did not wish to ride out, and said so in the beginning. That ought to have been enough for you. But no--my wishes were nothing; your will must be law." "And that is all! the head and front of my offending!" said Emerson, in a tone of surprise. "It isn't so much the thing itself that I object to, as the spirit in which it is done," said Irene.