‘I can see the scene now as if it was yesterday--my husband there, blazing like white light. He never looked like that in his life but once. And _he_--confused, afraid--on the other side of me, trembling for me.’ ‘And a little for himself, Cecile.’ ‘Silence! If you say so, I will strike you. And you, with your smooth tongue--always with your smooth tongue. How many lies it must have told first to be capable of that!’ ‘For your sake; you know it was for your sake. If you remember all that, remember, too, how the storm died down in a moment, and all was well.’ ‘Well!’ said the other. She leant back her head upon the breast of the woman whom she was accusing. ‘If it had raged itself out, and done its worst, would not that have been better than all that has followed--the bitterness and the hate, and the horror, and that girl living at my very door, to make me mad?’ ‘Why did you see her, Cecile? You might have ignored her altogether, forgotten her existence.’ ‘You forget,’ cried Mrs. Swinford. ‘She is the great lady of the village--takes precedence’--she laughed out with a hysterical violence which shook her from head to foot--‘precedence of me, if we were in the world together! Don’t you know that? But it will soon come to an end,’ she added, laughing again with that electric tinkle which wore out the nerves of all who heard her. ‘What a good thing they are so sordid a family, those Pakenhams, loving money as other people love their children, whatever is dearest to them! She will be called on to prove every step, and she will not be able to prove one. And then!--we shall see what the village will think of her title and her precedence then.’ ‘You have been agitating yourself in the most imprudent, in the most foolish way. Where are your drops? Her precedence, poor thing, will not hurt you, but a long faint will hurt you. Cecile, must I call your maid to see you in this state, or will you be quiet and listen to me?’ ‘Give me my drops. I must not, I must not, have another attack. The doctor says so. Artémise, don’t leave me, don’t leave me!’ ‘I will, if you do not turn from this subject at once. Throw it away from you. What on earth is Emily Plowden, or Pakenham, or whatever her name is, to you? Cecile, I begin to think a woman like you never learns, and that you are no better than a fool.’