The things we do!

He did not think fit to see them in their
sleep; nor did their mother. She did not know, as the poor little
creatures left her room in charge of their nurses, that she looked on
them for the last time. Perhaps, had she gone to their bedsides that
evening, had the wretched panic-stricken soul been allowed leisure to
pause, and to think, and to pray, the fate of the morrow might have been
otherwise, and the trembling balance of the scale have inclined to
right's side. But the pause was not allowed her. Her husband came and
saluted her with his accustomed greetings of scorn, and sarcasm, and
brutal insult. On a future day he never dared to call a servant of his
household to testify to his treatment of her; though many were ready to
attend to prove his cruelty and her terror. On that very last night, Lady
Clara's maid, a country girl from her father's house at Chanticlere, told
Sir Barnes in the midst of a conjugal dispute that her lady might bear
his conduct but she could not, and that she would no longer live under
the roof of such a brute.


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