“Oh, Mrs. Walsh, I came as fast as ever I could.” Lady Bell humbled herself in the dust before her ancient enemy. “I know now I was a bad, bad wife. I would give all I have in the world to be able to live the last year over again, and do my duty by your cousin, who is lying stiff and cold in one of these rooms, where I shall never hear him say that he forgives me, that he makes allowance at last for my youth, my wounded pride—what had a sinful creature to do with pride?—my forced inclinations. Oh! tell me he did not lay his curse upon me with his last breath?” implored Lady Bell, ready to sink down with grief and terror, while she clasped her hands and looked up, her distended eyes brimming over with scalding tears, in Mrs. Walsh’s inflexible face. “Yes, Lady Bell, you were a bad wife, and you would not take a telling while it was in your power,” declared the uncompromising woman, standing bolt upright, her very mittens bristling with her righteous protest. “Madam,” interposed Mrs. Sundon with rising indignation, “it is monstrous to reproach this poor child at such a time. She is sufficiently crushed by the nature of the event which has taken place, following on her rashness. She will not be likely to forget it, even without your accusations to embitter the blow. I vouch for Lady Bell’s having lived in safety and honour since she quitted her husband. Madam, you will not refuse my voucher?” “Madam, I have not heard your honesty questioned, therefore I grant that Lady Bell has come back in honest company,” acknowledged Mrs. Walsh stiffly, “which is more than might have been hoped, from her flying in the face of law and duty, and exposing herself to the worst perils.” “Though you are the late Mr. Trevor’s kinswoman, you must know,” said Mrs. Sundon, “that Lady Bell Trevor has been more sinned against than sinning.” “I know that she is not too young or fair or fine to be accountable for her errors to a Power before which the most wilful lady will not dare to plead her daintiness,” maintained Mrs. Walsh doggedly. “But I know, too, that you were sinned against, Lady Bell,” she added candidly, turning to the overwhelmed offender. “So far as that goes, Squire Trevor did not deserve your duty. But you had the will of a higher than my poor cousin to consider, and where should we all be, if we got our due, and no more? It was on the Squire’s mind at the last that he had wronged you; and he sought to receive, as well as to bestow, forgiveness, before he could die in peace.” “I did not merit it,” said Lady Bell; “but you told him, dear Mrs. Walsh—oh, say that you told the old man that I forgave him, as I hope to be forgiven?”