'I'm not given to suspecting,' said the poor clergyman, half in deprecation, half in reproof; 'but I am afraid it is a bad business. If she had married a servant or any one in her own rank, there would have been no need of concealing the name, at least from her mother. I feared at first that it was one of your cousin Charles's friends, but there seems more reason to suppose that one of the musical people at your concert at the castle may have thought her voice a good speculation for the stage.' 'He would marry her to secure her gains.' 'If so, why the secrecy?' 'Mrs. Jenkins has taught you to make it as bad as possible,' burst out Lucy. 'O, why was not I at home? Is it too late to trace her and proclaim her innocence!' 'I was wishing for your help. I went to Mr. Charteris to ask who the performers were, but he knew nothing about them, and said you and his sister had managed it all.' 'The director was Derval. He is fairly respectable, at least I know nothing to the contrary. I'll make Charlie write. There was an Italian, with a black beard and a bass voice, whom we have had several times. I saw him looking at her. Just tell me what sort of woman is the mother. She lets lodgings, does not she?' 'Yes, in Little Whittington-street.' 'Dear me! I trust she is no friend of Honor Charlecote's.' 'Out of her beat, I should think. She dissents.' 'What a blessing! I beg your pardon, but if anything could be an aggravation, it would be Honor Charlecote's moralities.' 'So you were not aware of the dissent?' 'And you are going to set that down as more deceit, as if it were the poor thing's business to denounce her mother. Now, to show you that I can be sure that Edna was brought up to the Church, I will tell you her antecedents. Her father was Sir Thomas Deane's butler; they lived in the village, and she was very much in the nursery with the Miss Deanes--had some lessons from the governess. There was some notion of making her a nursery governess, but Sir Thomas died, the ladies went abroad, taking her father with them; Edna was sent to a training school, and the mother went to live in the City with a relation who let lodgings, and who has since died, leaving the concern to Mrs. Murrell, whose husband was killed by an upset of the carriage on the Alps.'