Pain, most sincere and undisguised, not unmingled with actual pity, was visible in Miss Gascoigne's countenance as she looked on the young creature before her, to whom her words had caused such violent emotion. For this emotion her narrow nature--always so ready to look on human nature in its worst side, and to suspect wherever suspicion could alight--found but one interpretation--guilt. She drew back, terrified at what her interference had done. What if the story should prove to be, not mere idle gossip, but actual scandal--the sort of scandal which would cast a slur forever on the whole Grey family, herself included? There, above all, the fear struck home. Suppose she had meddled in a matter which no lady could touch without indecorum, perhaps actual defilement? Suppose, in answer to her entreaty, Christian should confide to her something which no lady ought to hear? What a fearful position for her--Miss Gascoigne--to be placed in! What should she say to Dr. Grey? Hard as her heart might be, this thought touched the one soft place in it. Her voice actually trembled as she said, "Your poor husband! what would become of him?" Christian sprang up with a shrill cry. "Yes, yes I know what I will do, I will go and tell my husband." Miss Gascoigne thought she was mad. And, indeed, there was something almost frenzied in the way her victim rushed from the room, like a creature driven desperate by misery. Aunt Henrietta did not know how to act. To follow Christian was quite beneath her dignity; to go home, with her mission unfulfilled, her duty undone, that too was impossible. She determined to wait a few minutes, and let things take their chance. Miss Gascoigne was not a bad woman, only an utterly mistaken and misguided one. She meant no harm--very few people do deliberately mean harm--they only do it. She had set herself against her brother-in-law's marriage--not in the abstract, she was scarcely so wicked and foolish as that; but against his marrying this particular woman, partly because Christian was only a governess, with somewhat painful antecedents--one who could neither bring money, rank, nor position to Dr. Grey and his family, but chiefly because it had wounded her self-love that she, Miss Gascoigne, had not been consulted, and had had no hand in bringing about the marriage. Therefore she had determined to see it, and all concerning it, in the very worst light to modify nothing, to excuse nothing. She had made up her mind that things were to be so and so, and so and so they must of necessity turn out. _Audi alteram partem_ was an idea that never occurred, never had occurred, in all her life to Henrietta Gascoigne. In fact, she would never have believed there could be "another side," since she herself was not able to behold it.