She had smiled when the earl, whose conscience was more tender than her own, had said over and over again that it was a terrible thing to set aside a marriage, to call a religious ceremony null and void. He would not have done it himself, but my lady had firm nerves, and a will of iron; nothing daunted her. She laughed at his persuasions and arguments. She told him the day would come on which he would thank Heaven that the honor of his name and race had been saved from destruction. My lady was triumphant. Knowing her son was spending his whole time in these journeys, she had requested Mr. Sewell himself to go to the pretty little villa at Richmond, to see the young wife himself, and tell her the truth about the marriage; to speak what she was pleased to call plain English to her; to tell her that in the eyes of the law and of all honest, honorable men she was not his wife; that every hour she called herself by his name, or lived under his roof, added to her disgrace and increased her shame. "You can tell her," said my lady, with ill-concealed contempt, "that next June he will be twenty-one, and then he can please himself; he can remarry her if he will; no one then will have the least control over him; he will be his own master and can do as he likes. In all probability," she continued, "the girl will please herself with fanciful ideas about his being true to her; do not contradict her if she believes it--she will part from him more easily; but, believe me, my son will never return to her--never!" Mr. Sewell had tried in vain to escape the interview; he was neither particularly tender of heart nor given to sentiment, but he shrunk from seeing the young girl who called herself Lady Chandos; he shrunk from telling her the truth; but my lady was inexorable; he must do it, and no one else. He did it, but until the day of his death he never forgot it; he could not bear to think of it, and he never mentioned it. Until the day of his death he was haunted by a beautiful, passionate face, white with terrible despair. He was compelled to speak in what my lady called plain English, or she would never have understood him. She could not understand in the least why the fact of Lord Chandos being under twenty-one should make her marriage null and void; illegal, because contracted without his parents' consent. She had turned to him with flashing eyes. "Are the laws of England all framed for the convenience of the rich?" she asked. And, proud as he was of his legal knowledge, the lawyer had hesitated before the fire of her question. She understood at last--she saw what Mr. Sewell called the justice of the case--the reasons why such a law was needful, and she knew that she was not the lawful wife of Lancelot, Lord Chandos. She looked into the stern face of her companion with eyes filled with awful despair. "He did not know it," she said; "only tell me that, and I shall be happier. He did not know it?"