Edgar stood before his judge motionless, saying no more. I think he felt now how completely the tables were turned, and what an almost cruel advantage he had over her. His part was that of fact and reality, which no one could conjure back into nothingness; and hers that of opposition, disapproval, resistance to the inevitable. He was the rock, and she the vexed and vexing waves, dashing against it, unable to overthrow it. In their last great encounter these positions had been reversed, and it was she who had command of the situation. Now, howsoever parental authority might resist, or the world oppose, the two lovers knew very well, being persons in their full senses, and of full age, that they had but to persevere, and their point would be gained. Lady Augusta felt it too--it was this which had made her so deeply alarmed from the first, so anxious to keep Edgar at arm’s length. The moment she caught sight of him on this particular morning, she felt that all was over. But that certainty unfortunately does not quench the feelings of opposition, though it may take all hope of eventual success from them. All that this secret conviction of the uselessness of resistance did for Lady Augusta was to make her more hot, more desperate, more _acharnée_ than she had ever been. She grew angry at the silence of her opponent--his very patience seemed a renewed wrong, a contemptuous evidence of conscious power. “You do not say anything,” she cried. “You allow me to speak without an answer. What do you mean me to understand by this--that you defy me? I have treated you as a friend all along. I thought you were good, and honourable, and true. I have always stood up for you--treated you almost like a son! And is this to be the end of it? You defy me! You teach my own child to resist my will! You do not even keep up the farce of respecting my opinion--now that she has gone over to your side!” Here poor Lady Augusta got up from her chair, flushed and trembling, with the tears coming to her eyes, and an angry despair warring against very different feelings in her mind. She rose up, not looking at either of the culprits, and leant her arm on the mantelpiece, and gazed unawares at her own excited, troubled countenance in the glass. Yes, they had left her out of their calculations; she who had always (she knew) been so good to them! It no longer seemed worth while to send Gussy away, to treat her as if she were innocent of the complot. She had gone over to the other side. Lady Augusta felt herself deserted, slighted, injured, with the two against her--and determined, doubly determined, never to yield. “Mamma,” said Gussy, softly, “do not be angry with Edgar. Don’t you know, as well as I, that I have always been on his side?” “Don’t venture to say a word to me, Gussy,” said Lady Augusta. “I will not endure it from you!”