Lady William stood as she had done when young Pakenham dropped her hand until Leo Swinford, following his friend, had closed the door of the little drawing-room. I think she heard through the open window all that Mab said--at all events, the laugh so full of merriment and spontaneity bursting out into the pleasant air. Then she suddenly sank into the chair, and covering her face with her hands fell into a sudden burst of silent weeping. There was no sound, but her shoulder heaved with the effort to control and subdue the sudden emotion. Mr. Plowden had been standing, too, perplexed and disappointed by the stranger’s sudden withdrawal, but a little consoled by the laugh which seemed to prove that there was at all events a good understanding between Mab and her cousin. He did not perceive for a moment the effect upon his sister, and it was only after the young man had gone out of the garden gate, that, turning to speak to her, he perceived the attitude of abandonment, the restrained but almost irrestrainable passion by which she had been seized. He was not so much afraid of seeing women cry as men less experienced are. But Emily had never been of the weeping kind, and the Rector was startled and touched by the sight of the paroxysm with which she was struggling, to keep it down. ‘Emily,’ he cried, ‘Emily, my dear, what is it? You’re not breaking down?’ ‘James,’ she cried, but very low, suddenly lifting to him a face full of anguish and exceedingly pale, ‘if we should not be able to prove it; if we can’t get the evidence! Oh James, my Mab, my child!’ ‘Why shouldn’t we be able to prove it?’ he said, with half-angry calm. ‘Where is the difficulty of proving it? and what has that to do with it? Why, Emily, I never knew your good sense fail you before.’ ‘My good sense!’ she said, with a miserable smile. ‘To be sure! Why, what is there to cry about? Such an unexpected windfall to Mab--a fortune, no doubt, though he did not tell us how much. You cut the young man short, Emily. I can’t see why. He seemed a very civil young man.’ Lady William raised herself up and dried her wet eyes. ‘You are quite right,’ she said, ‘it is my common sense that is failing me, James.’