"I will answer you to-morrow, mamma." Then the Countess fell on her knees at the bedside and uttered a long, incoherent prayer, addressed partly to the God of heaven, and partly to the poor girl who was lying there in bed, supplicating with mad, passionate eagerness that this evil thing might be turned away from her. Then she seized the girl in her embrace and nearly smothered her with kisses. "My own, my darling, my beauty, my all; save your mother from worse than death, if you can;--if you can!" Had such tenderness come sooner it might have had deeper effect. As it was, though the daughter was affected and harassed,--though she was left panting with sobs and drowned in tears,--she could not but remember the treatment she had suffered from her mother during the last six months. Had the request for a year's delay come sooner, it would have been granted; but now it was made after all measures of cruelty had failed. Ten times during the night did she say that she would yield,--and ten times again did she tell herself that were she to yield now, she would be a slave all her life. She had resolved,--whether right or wrong,--still, with a strong mind and a great purpose, that she would not be turned from her way, and when she arose in the morning she was resolved again. She went into her mother's room and at once declared her purpose. "Mamma, it cannot be. I am his, and I must not forget him or be ashamed of his name;--no, not for a day." "Then go from me, thou ungrateful one, hard of heart, unnatural child, base, cruel, and polluted. Go from me, if it be possible, for ever!" Then did they live for some days separated for a second time, each taking her meals in her own room; and Mrs. Richards, the owner of the lodgings, went again to Mrs. Bluestone, declaring that she was afraid of what might happen, and that she must pray to be relieved from the presence of the ladies. Mrs. Bluestone had to explain that the lodgings had been taken for the quarter, and that a mother and daughter could not be put out into the street merely because they lived on bad terms with each other. The old woman, as was natural, increased her bills;--but that had no effect. On the 15th of May Lady Anna wrote a note to Daniel Thwaite, and sent a copy of it to her mother before she had posted it. It was in two lines;-- DEAR DANIEL, Pray come and see me here. If you get this soon enough, pray come on Tuesday about one. Yours affectionately, ANNA. "Tell mamma," said she to Sarah, "that I intend to go out and put that in the post to-day." The letter was addressed to Wyndham Street. Now the Countess knew that Daniel Thwaite had left Wyndham Street.