“Mamma, I must speak. It was you who turned my thoughts to him first. Was it likely that _I_ should forget him because he was in trouble? Why, _you_ did not! You yourself were fond of him all along, and trusted him so that you took his pledge to give up his own will to yours. But I never gave any pledge,” said Gussy, folding her hands. “You never asked me what I thought, or I should have told you. I have been waiting for Edgar. He has not dared to come to me since he came back to England, because of his promise to you; and I have not dared to go to him, because--simply because I was a woman. But when we met, mamma--when we _met_, I say--not his seeking or my seeking--by accident, as you call it----” “Oh! accident!” cried Lady Augusta, with a sneer, which sat very strangely upon her kind face. “Accident! One knows how such accidents come to pass!” “If you doubt our truth,” cried Gussy, in a little outburst, “of course there is no more to say.” “I beg your pardon,” said the mother, faintly. She had put herself in the wrong. The sneer, the first and only sneer of which poor Lady Augusta had known herself to be guilty, turned to a weapon against her. Compunction and shame filled up the last drop of the conflicting emotions that possessed her. “It is easy for you both to speak,” she said, “very easy; to you it is nothing but a matter of feeling. You never ask yourself how it is to be done. You never think of the thousand difficulties with the world, with your father, with circumstances. What have I taken the trouble to struggle for? You yourself do me justice, Gussy! Not because I would not have preferred Edgar--oh! don’t come near me!” she cried, holding out her hand to keep him back; as he approached a step at the softening sound of his name--“don’t work upon my feelings! It is cruel; it is taking a mean advantage. Not because I did not prefer him--but because life is not a dream, as you think it, not a romance, nor a poem. What am I to do?” cried Lady Augusta, clasping her hands, and raising them with unconscious, most natural theatricalness. “What am I to do? How am I to face your father, your brothers, the world?” I do not know what the two listeners could have done, after the climax of this speech, but to put themselves at her feet, with that instinct of nature in extreme circumstances which the theatre has seized for its own, and given a partially absurd colour to; but they were saved from thus committing themselves by the sudden and precipitate entrance of Lady Mary, who flung the door open, and suddenly rushed among them without warning or preparation. “I come to warn you,” she cried, “Augusta!” Then stopped short, seeing at a glance the state of affairs.