2l8 The Real Charlotte. 



failed her, partly from the suffocating anger that rose in her 

 at her own words, and partly from a dizziness that made the 

 bath-chair, Sir Benjamin, and James Canavan, float up and 

 down in the air before her. 



Sir Benjamin suddenly began to brandish his stick. 

 " What the devil is she saying about Christopher ? What 

 has Christopher to say to my tenants. D — n his insolence 1 

 He ought to be at school ! " 



The remarkable grimaces which James Canavan made 

 at Julia from the back of the bath-chair informed her that 

 she had lighted upon the worst possible method of in- 

 gratiating herself with her landlord, but the information 

 came too late. 



" Send that woman away, James Canavan ! " he screamed, 

 making sweeps at her with his oak stick. " She shall never 

 put her d — d splay foot upon my avenue again. I'll thrash 

 her and Christopher out of the place ! Turn her out, I tell 

 you, James Canavan ! " 



Julia stood motionless and aghast beyond the reach of the 

 stick, until James Canavan motioned to her to move aside ; 

 she staggered back among the long arms of a lignum vUce^ 

 and the bath-chair, with its still cursing, gesticulating 

 occupant, went by her at a round pace. Then she came 

 slowly and uncertainly out on to the path again, and looked 

 after the chariot wheels of the Caesar to whom she had 

 appealed. 



James Canavan's coat-tails were standing out behind him 

 as he drove the bath-chair round the corner of the path, and 

 Sir Benjamin's imprecations came faintly back to her as she 

 stood waiting till the throbbing giddiness should cease suffi- 

 ciently for her to begin the homeward journey that stretched, 

 horrible and impossible, before her. Her head ached 

 wildly, and as she walked down the avenue she found herself 

 stumbling against the edge of the grass, now on one side 

 and now on the other. She said to herself that the people 

 would say she was drunk, but she didn't care now what they 

 said. It would be shortly till they saw her a disgraced 

 woman, with the sheriff coming to put her out of her 

 father's house on to the road. She gave a hard, short sob as 

 this occurred to her, and she wondered if she would have 

 the good luck to die, supposing she let herself fall down on 



