"You mistake me, Everard," replied his friend. "It is a matter of even greater importance I wish to speak of. It is a matter on which depends your happiness for life." Morrison made a sign, as if he would have stopped him, and turned away his head, but Charles Tyrrell continued, without heeding the distaste he evinced for the subject. "Nay, nay, Morrison," he said, "you have shown me great and disinterested friendship--you have rendered me a most important service, and so also must I act to you. Let me ask you one question, Morrison." "What is it?" said Morrison: "but, indeed, Tyrrell, arguments upon such subjects as you are going to speak of, are of no use. My line of conduct is determined on." "Determined then, I fear, for your own unhappiness," replied Charles Tyrrell; "but, however, my question is this: If a person whom you dearly love, should do some act, which you, without knowing all the circumstances, were to judge wrong, and you were thereupon, to treat a person who loves you, harshly and unkindly, what would be your conduct afterward, on discovering that that person had acted with the best and highest motives, and on the purest and most straightforward views?" "Were such a case applicable to me," replied Morrison, "I would take her to my heart at once, or rather fall upon my knees and beseech her to pardon me. But such, however, cannot be the case with me; even her own father, Tyrrell, even her own father----" "Judged of her as wrongly as you did, Morrison," replied Charles Tyrrell. Lucy had looked on with interest, and with that peculiar talent which women so eminently possess for discovering, almost by intuition, the particulars of everything that relates to love, she had formed a very accurate idea of the principal circumstances to which Charles Tyrrell alluded. Charles, who saw her face full of intelligence as he spoke, whispered a word or two to her, and without reply, she glided into the next room, while he went on still addressing Morrison. "I think, Everard," he said, "that you know me well enough, to be sure that no consideration on earth--no mistaking kindness--no weak view of removing dissension would induce me to say one word that is not strictly consonant with truth. I now tell you, and pledge you my word of honour, partly from my own personal knowledge--partly from what Hailes, here present, has told me, that you have been entirely mistaken and deceived, in regard to the behaviour of Miss Longly, and here she is to answer for herself at once. It is my full opinion, Everard, that you owe her an apology, for she has suffered much, and greatly for that in which she was not all in fault." While he was speaking, the voice of Lucy Effingham was heard persuading, though with great difficulty, Hannah Longly to come forth from the other room. She succeeded, however, in leading her out, half clinging to her for support--half-drawing back in shame and apprehension.