"But that was not all," said Margaret, suddenly turning on him her grieving eyes--eyes that always looked so much more grieved than their owner felt--and her flushing, quivering face: "You told me first that I was wrong--selfish and unjust; and you want me to humiliate myself--to say that it was my fault----" "My dearest Margaret!" exclaimed Lady Caroline, in amaze, "what can you mean? Philip, are we dreaming?--Darling child, come with me to your room: you had better lie down for a little time while I talk to Sir Philip. Excuse me a moment, Sir Philip--I will come back." Margaret allowed herself to be led from the room. This outbreak of emotion was almost unprecedented in her history; but then Sir Philip had attacked her on her tenderest side--that of her personal dignity. Margaret Adair found it very hard to believe that she was as others are, and not made of a different clay from them. Some little time elapsed before Lady Caroline's return. She had made Margaret lie down, administered sal volatile, covered her with an eiderdown quilt, and seen her maid bathing the girl's forehead with eau de Cologne and water before she came back again. And all this took time. She apologized very prettily for her delay, but Sir Philip did not seem to heed her excuses: he was standing beside the fire, meditatively tugging at his black beard, and Lady Caroline had some difficulty in thinking that she could read the expression of his face. "I do not quite understand all this," she said, with her most amiable expression of countenance, as she seated herself on the other side of the soft white hearthrug. "Margaret mentioned Miss Colwyn's name: I am quite at a loss to imagine how Miss Colwyn comes to be mixed up in the matter." "I am very sorry," said Sir Philip, ruefully. "I never thought that there would be any difficulty. I seem to have offended Margaret most thoroughly." Lady Caroline smiled. "Girls soon forget a man's offences," she said, consolingly. "What did you say?" And then Sir Philip, with some hesitation, told the story of his plea for Janetta Colwyn. The smile was frozen on Lady Caroline's lips. She sat up straight, and stared at her visitor. When he had quite ended his explanation, she said, as icily as she knew how to speak-- "And you asked my daughter to justify Miss Colwyn at the cost of her own feelings--I might almost say, of her own social standing in the neighborhood!----" "Isn't that a little too strong, Lady Caroline? Your daughter's social standing would not be touched in the least by an act of common justice. No one who heard of it but would honor her for exculpating her friend!" "Exculpating! My dear Philip, you are too Quixotic! Nobody accuses either of the girls of anything but a little thoughtlessness and defiance of authority----"