“Then you had said nothing to her?” said his mother, pursuing the subject. Perhaps she permitted a little gleam of triumph to appear in her eye, for he jumped up instantly, more excited than ever. “I am going after them,” he said. “I don’t mean to be turned off without an answer. Whether she has me or not, she shall decide herself; it shall not be done by any plot against us. This is what you drive me to, with your underhand ways. I shall not wait a day longer. I’ll go down to Scotland to-night.” “Do not say anything to him, Gussy,” cried Lady Augusta. “Let him accuse his mother and sister of underhand ways, if he likes. And you can go, sir, if you please, on your mad errand. If the woman is a lady, she will know what to think of your suspicions. If she is not a lady----” “What then?” he cried, in high wrath. “Probably she will accept you,” said Lady Augusta, pale and grand. “I do not understand the modes of action of such people. You will have had your way, in any case--and then you will hear what your father has to say.” Harry flung out of the house furious. He was very unhappy, poor fellow! He was chilled and cast down, in spite of himself, by his mother’s speech. Why should he follow Margaret as if he suspected her? What right had he to interfere with her actions? If he went he might be supposed to insult her--if he stayed he should lose her. What was he to do? Poor Harry!--if Dr. Murray had not been so obnoxious to him, I think he would have confided his troubles to, and asked advice from, Margaret’s brother; but Dr. Charles had replied to his inquiry with a confidential look, and a smile which made him furious. “She will be back in a week or two. I am not afraid just now, in present circumstances, that she will forsake me for long,” he had said. “We shall soon have her back again.” We!--whom did the fellow mean by we? Harry resolved on the spot that, if she ever became his wife, she should give up this cad of a brother. Which I am glad to say, for her credit, was a thing that Margaret would never have consented to do.