A HEAVY PENALTY
CAPTAIN TORRANCE made no mistake when he spoke of the great beauty of Kathleen Mountford's mother, and of its reproduction in the girl herself.
Mrs. Mountford was under twenty when she became a wife. She was a poor, but well-born Irish girl, named Kathleen Dillon, whom Mr. Mountford met when he was past forty, and regarded by all his friends as a confirmed bachelor. After a very short acquaintance the two were married, and he proved a most devoted and indulgent husband to the young wife who was less than half his own age.
Mrs. Mountford was proud of her conquest, and truly loved her husband, but she was of an impetuous and somewhat wilful disposition. She would often take advantage of Mr. Mountford's almost unlimited indulgence, and liked to show that she had only to ask and to have, or to have without the asking, whatever she set her mind upon, whether wisely or otherwise. In time, however, Mr. Mountford realised that he might be more truly kind in refusing than in granting some of his wife's demands, and that her real happiness would be best furthered by the exercise of his own sober judgment. Then followed a sort of struggle for mastery. Mrs. Mountford had been so long used to follow the bent of her own will, that she chafed under the slightest opposition. Sometimes, when her silence led Mr. Mountford to think that she agreed with him, she would take the first opportunity of setting his orders at defiance. If he showed displeasure, she would try him sorely by keeping out of his sight, or when in it, answering only by monosyllables and resolutely declining to share in anything he might propose.
Probably Mrs. Mountford punished herself quite as much as she did her husband. For, with her lively disposition and impetuosity of temper, such a state of things was no light trial. A few hours of it, and her lovely face would look like that of a troubled child. Her eyes would fill with tears, her lips would tremble, and she would look at her husband with an expression half penitent, half reproachful, as if mutely asking—
"How can you be so cruel, and treat my little faults so seriously? I am only a child compared with one who is so wise as you."
One pleading pitiful look from those wonderful eyes, and Mr. Mountford was certain to yield unconditionally. His arms would be extended, the young wife would fly to them, and as he clasped her to his breast she would sob out complaints of his unkindness.
"You know I never want to vex you, Kenneth," she would say. "But I am just a spoiled child, and you have helped to make me worse. You will have to be ever so patient with me, and you know you ought to be, because you are older, and so very wise. When you were so cross and looked grave, I felt perfectly crushed. Oh, Kenneth, how could you be so hard?"
Mr. Mountford might conscientiously feel that he had been anything but cross or harsh, considering that his wife had deliberately disobeyed commands which were wholly for her own good. He might be certain that he was the injured party, that he ought to insist on obedience to his will, especially when it involved no privation worth the name. But his intense love for his wife made him as wax in her hands, and while conscious that he had right on his side, he was full of remorse at the thought of having pained a creature so loving and beautiful, and so like a child in her wilfulness.
After such an outbreak there would be peace for a time. Home would be a little heaven, blessed too, at length, with music of a kind unknown in paradise, that of a baby voice.