The whole young party went into the dining-room, where the _Times_ which Mr. Burchell had grudged to Mrs. Meredith was still on the table. A dining-room is an oppressive place for such a purpose. It looks like bad interviews with fathers when there are admonitions to be given, or those fearful moments when a young offender is detained after the others have left the cheerful table, to be told of his faults. Agnes went into the house of her husband’s mother, with her heart in her mouth, or, at least, in her throat, leaping wildly, ready to sink into the ground with shame and terror. How would Mrs. Meredith receive her? Her own mother had yielded only to the arguments which the poor girl despised the most, to the details of Oswald’s income, and the settlements, about which he had already written to his lawyer. This mollified her--not Agnes’s weeping explanations; and the bride’s heart was still sore from the pang of this forgiveness, which Oswald, not caring in the least for Mrs. Burchell, had been quite satisfied with. He did not care very much for anything except herself, she had already found out, and took all disapproval with the frankest levity of indifference, which made it burn all the more into the heart of Agnes. Perhaps it was necessary for her to have a burden of one kind or another. And his mother; how would his mother look upon her? Would she set her down, as it was so natural for mothers to do, as the guilty party, the chief offender? Agnes had felt that her own mother had done this. She had excused Oswald. ‘No man would ever think of such a thing, if he had not got encouragement.’ Even Sister Mary Jane had said so, in a modified and more generous way. Was it always the poor girl’s, the poor wife’s fault? Agnes shrank into a corner. She could not take any courage from Cara’s caressings, who came and hung about her, full of admiration and interest. ‘I was his confidante all the time,’ said Cara; ‘but how was I to know that his Agnes was you?’