Her face again wore a gray, rigid aspect, as if she had received a wound that touched her heart; and, scarcely waiting for the miscellaneous horde to pass, she took Laura's arm, and said briefly and almost sternly:
"Come."
Mr. Arnot's equanimity was again destined to be disturbed. Until he had commenced to carry out his scheme of striking fear into the hearts of his employes, he had derived much grim satisfaction from its contemplation. But never had a severe and unrelenting policy failed more signally, and a partial consciousness of the fact annoyed him like a constant stinging of nettles which he could not brush aside. When, therefore, his wife entered, he greeted her with his heaviest frown, and a certain twitching of his hands as he fumbled among his papers, which showed that the man who at times seemed composed of equal parts of iron and lead had at last reached a condition of nervous irritability which might result in an explosion of wrath; and yet he made a desperate effort at self-control, for he saw that his wife was in one of those moods which he had learned to regard with a wholesome respect.
"You have sent Haldane to prison," she said calmly. Though her tone was so quiet, there was in it a certain depth and tremble which her husband well understood, but he only answered briefly:
"Yes; he must go there if he finds no bail."
"May I ask why?"
"He robbed me of a thousand dollars."
"Were there no extenuating circumstances?" Mrs. Arnot asked, after a slight start.
"No, but many aggravating ones."
"Did he not come here of his own accord?"