"And your children are lords and ladies and honourables," darting a look of consternation at Anne, "whilst my daughter's--" "Peace, Lady Kirton!" sternly interrupted Val. "Let the child, Maude, be Lady Maude still to the world; let your daughter's memory be held sacred. The facts need never come out: I do not fear now that they ever will. I and my wife and Thomas Carr, will guard the secret safely: take you care to do so." "I wish you had been hung before you married Maude!" responded the aggrieved dowager. "I wish I had," said he. "Ugh!" she grunted wrathfully, the ready assent not pleasing her. "With my poor boy's death the chief difficulty has passed away. How things would have turned out, or what would have been done, had he lived, it has well-nigh worn away my brain to dwell upon. Carr knows that it has nearly killed me: my wife knows it." "Yes, you could tell her things, and keep the diabolical secret from poor Maude and from me," she returned, rather inconsistently. "I don't doubt you and your wife have exulted enough over it." "I never knew it until to-night," said Anne, gently turning to the dowager. "It has grieved me deeply. I shall never cease to feel for your daughter's wrongs; and it will only make me more tender and loving to her child. The world will never know that she is not Lady Maude." "And the other name--Elster--because you know she has no right to it," was the spiteful retort. "I wish to my heart you had been drowned in your brother's place, Lord Hartledon; I wished it at the time." "I know you did." "You could not then have made fools of me and my dear daughter; and the darling little cherub in the churchyard would have been the real heir. There'd have been a good riddance of you." "It might have been better for me in the long run," said he, quietly, passing over the inconsistencies of her speech. "Little peace or happiness have I had in living. Do not let us recriminate, Lady Kirton, or on some scores I might reproach you. Maude loved my brother, and you knew it; I loved Miss Ashton, and you knew that; yet from the very hour the breath was out of my brother's body you laid your plans and began your schemes upon me. I was weak as water in your hands, and fell into the snare. The marriage was your work entirely; and in the fruits it has brought forth there might arise a nice question, Lady Kirton, which of us is most to blame: I, who erred unwittingly, or you who--" "Will you have done?" she cried. "I have nearly done. I only wish you to remember that others may have been wrong, as well as myself. Dr. Ashton warned us that night that the marriage might not bring a blessing. Anne, it was a cruel wrong upon you," he added, impulsively turning to her; "you felt it bitterly, I shamefully; but, my dear wife, you have lived to see that it was in reality a mercy in disguise." The countess-dowager, not finding words strong enough to express her feelings at this, made a grimace at him.