"And then you undertook to shield her," interposed Lady Acorn, "and a glorious mess you have made of it between you. Grace, how you worry! you can speak when I have done. What she did would have been hushed up by her husband for all our sakes, but what you did was a very different matter. And the disgrace you have gratuitously brought upon yourself may yet be blazoned forth to every corner of the United Kingdom." "And these are all the thanks I get," remarked Charles, striving to speak lightly. "What other thanks would you like?" remarked the countess. "A service of plate presented to you? You deserve a testimonial, don't you, for having run your head into a noose of this dangerous kind for any woman! And for Adela, of all others, who cares for no one on earth but her blessed self. Not she." "My mother is right," said Lady Grace, "and it may be as well, Charles, that you should know it. Adela has never cared for you in any way, except as an amusing boy, who could talk nonsense to her when she chose to condescend to listen. If you have thought anything else----" "I never had a disloyal thought to Lady Adela," interrupted Charles, warmly. "Or to her husband--who has always been so kind to me. I would have warded all such--all ill--from her with my life." "And nicely she has repaid you!" commented Lady Acorn. "Do you suppose she would have confessed this herself?--no, we found it out. She would have let you suffer, and never said 'Thank you.' I tell you this, Master Charley; and I hope you will let it prove to you what the smiles of a heartless butterfly of a married woman are worth." He bit his dry and fevered lips with mortification--fevered for _her_. And Lady Acorn, after bestowing a few more unpalatable truths upon the unhappy prisoner, took her daughter's arm and hurried away, glad to escape from the place and the interview. "A capital success we have had, Gracie," she cried, when they were outside the stone walls, "but it is all thanks to me. You would have beat about the bush, and palavered, and hesitated, and done no good. I got it out of him nicely--like the green sea-gull that the boy is. But, Grace, my child"--and Lady Acorn's voice for once grew hushed and solemn--"what in the world will be done with Adela?"