“Guarded! Yes, that’s it; that’s just the word. But it’s he that should have been guarded. He should have had a fire-guard hung before him—or a love-guard, if you will. Guarded! Was I not guarded, till you all would drag me out? Did I want to go there? And when I was there, did I not make a fool of myself, sitting in a corner, and thinking how much better placed I should have been down in the servants’ hall. Lady Lufton—she dragged me out, and then cautioned me, and then, then— Why is Lady Lufton to have it all her own way? Why am I to be sacrificed for her? I did not want to know Lady Lufton, or any one belonging to her.” “I cannot think that you have any cause to blame Lady Lufton, nor, perhaps, to blame anybody very much.” “Well, no, it has been all my own fault; though for the life of me, Fanny, going back and back, I cannot see where I took the first false step. I do not know where I went wrong. One wrong thing I did, and it is the only thing that I do not regret.” “What was that, Lucy?” “I told him a lie.” Mrs. Robarts was altogether in the dark, and feeling that she was so, she knew that she could not give counsel as a friend or a sister. Lucy had begun by declaring—so Mrs. Robarts thought—that nothing had passed between her and Lord Lufton but words of most trivial import, and yet she now accused herself of falsehood, and declared that that falsehood was the only thing which she did not regret! “I hope not,” said Mrs. Robarts. “If you did, you were very unlike yourself.” “But I did, and were he here again, speaking to me in the same way, I should repeat it. I know I should. If I did not, I should have all the world on me. You would frown on me, and be cold. My darling Fanny, how would you look if I really displeasured you?” “I don’t think you will do that, Lucy.” “But if I told him the truth I should, should I not? Speak now. But no, Fanny, you need not speak. It was not the fear of you; no, nor even of her: though Heaven knows that her terrible glumness would be quite unendurable.” “I cannot understand you, Lucy. What truth or what untruth can you have told him if, as you say, there has been nothing between you but ordinary conversation?” Lucy then got up from the sofa, and walked twice the length of the room before she spoke. Mrs. Robarts had all the ordinary curiosity—I was going to say, of a woman, but I mean to say, of humanity; and she had, moreover, all the love of a sister. She was both curious and anxious, and remained sitting where she was, silent, and with her eyes fixed on her companion. “Did I say so?” Lucy said at last. “No, Fanny; you have mistaken me: I did not say that. Ah, yes, about the cow and the dog. All that was true. I was telling you of what his soft words had been while I was becoming such a fool. Since that he has said more.” “What more has he said, Lucy?”