"I was all white, and my frock was long. Some one did think I was Miss Haredale. Amethyst, I think I could do it this way. If they think he had an affair with you, that would be worse still for him. We'll go all three of us to Mrs Leigh, and say, we're very sorry there's been a mistake, but Major Fowler always played with us, as my lady said, and that he just gave me a kiss for fun, to tease me, as I was dressed like a grown-up girl. She'll think we're forward little minxes, but she'll never think more of a child like me. I can _do_ the child well enough, if I like," concluded Una with melancholy shrewdness. "I wouldn't have you do such a thing for the world!" exclaimed Amethyst, horrified. "Besides, Mrs Leigh wouldn't believe you; and that is not all." "Oh no, I know there's some awful scrape of my lady's. But won't she believe about the purse either?" said Una, to whom the scheme of exciting magnanimous confession had a certain miserable attraction. "Una!" said Amethyst, "I'd rather never see Lucian again, than have you and Tory tell lies for my sake. Oh, it is all horrible--better a thousand times lose him, than know I was deceiving him!" "Is that true?" said Una, in a tone of intense surprise, and, as she spoke, an awful wave of self-knowledge flooded Amethyst's mind; and the nature within her, akin to the mother whom she had found out, akin to the very girl whose proposal was so shocking to her, rose up in all its strength of self-pleasing passion. Was it true? She, felt as if her own soul, and the soul of her young sister,--nay, Lucian's soul too, might depend on her answer. "Oh, God help me! God help me!" she cried. "It shall be true! I'll join in no cheating--nor let you do things worse than you understand, for my sake. But oh, it's a dreadful world! Oh, mother, mother!" and floods of tears and choking sobs overwhelmed her. Una twined her arms round her, kissing her, and calling her by every tender name. For a moment Amethyst held back, half shrinking from her, half feeling how unfit it was for such a child to witness her despair. But she was little more than a child herself, in extreme need of love and sympathy. She put up her cheek to Una's, and the two poor girls, victims of the sins and follies of others, clung to each other for the comfort there was no one else on earth to give them. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE WICKEDNESS OF THE WORLD. It was no surprise to Sylvester Riddell, when, as he sat alone on that same morning, in the room appropriated to himself and his home belongings, Lucian Leigh burst in upon him, white-faced and fierce, and broke out with no previous greeting. "Sylvester! You were with my mother yesterday. What does it all mean? What is this extraordinary delusion?"