His voice broke here; he had not meant to go so far. As a gentleman at least, he ought, he knew, to use no oath to ladies; but poor Harry was beside himself. He stopped short, half-appalled, half-satisfied that he had spoken his mind. “Harry, how dare you?” cried Gussy, facing him. “Do you not see how you are wounding mamma? Has there ever been a time when she has not stood up for you? And now because she is grieved to think that you are going to ruin yourself, unwilling that you should throw yourself away----” “All this comes beautifully from you!” cried Harry, with a sneer--“you who have never thought of throwing yourself away. But I am sorry for you, Gussy. I don’t triumph over you. You have been taken in, poor girl, the worst of the two!” Gussy was shaken for the moment by his change of tone, by his sudden compassion. She felt as if the ground had suddenly been cut from under her feet, and a dizzy sense of insecurity came over her. She looked at her mother, half frightened, not knowing what to think or say. “When you have come to your senses, Harry, you will perhaps tell us the meaning of this!” cried Lady Augusta. “Girls, it is time for you to keep your appointment with Elise. Ada will go with you to-day, for I don’t feel quite well. If you have anything to say to me another time,” she added with dignity, addressing her son, “especially if it is of a violent description, you will be good enough to wait until Mary has left the room. I do not choose that she should carry away into her new family the recollection of brutality at home.” Lady Augusta’s grand manner was known in the household. Poor Gussy, though sad and sorry enough, found it difficult to keep from a laugh in which there would have been but little mirth. But Harry’s perceptions were not so lively, or his sense of the ridiculous so strong. He was somehow cowed by the idea of his little sister carrying a recollection of brutality into so new and splendid a connection as the Marquis of Hauteville’s magnificent family. “Oh, bosh!” he said; but it was almost under his breath. And then he told them of Edgar’s departure from Tottenham’s, and of the discovery he had made that Margaret had gone too. “You set him on, I suppose, to cross me,” said Harry; “because I let you know there was one woman in the world I could fancy--therefore you set him on to take her from me.” “Oh! Harry, how can you say so? _I_ set him on!” cried Lady Augusta. “What you are telling me is all foolishness. You are both of you frightening yourselves about nothing. If there is anyone dying, and they were sent for, there is no harm in two cousins travelling together. Harry, did this lady--know what your feelings were?” “I suppose,” said Harry, after a moment’s hesitation, “women are not such fools but that they must know.”