‘Ah well! There is never any telling; since he cannot have one, he may content himself with the other. I have seen more wonderful things before now.’ ‘Who is the one he cannot have?’ ‘My dear Cecile, why this tone of surprise? I told you before. Leo thinks Lady William the most attractive woman he ever saw, and I do not wonder. She was always attractive, even as a silly girl.’ ‘How you insult me, Artémise!--a woman I hate, who has no right to that name, and will soon be proved the impostor I have always known she was.’ Mrs. Swinford sat upright on her sofa, with a glow of anger on her face. ‘Then I had better hurry off,’ said Mrs. Brown composedly. ‘If she is to be attacked, it is evident I cannot stay here.’ ‘But you said it was the safest place,’ cried Mrs. Swinford in alarm, ‘that nobody would think, of looking for you in Watcham.’ ‘It is no longer safe now that Leo is on my track, and little Mab full of alarm as to my morality. She will not betray me, that little thing; but some time or other she will make her mother come with her, to judge if my teaching is all right.’ ‘Then you must go, Artémise--you must go at once; though how I am to live, in this dreadful place, with no one to care whether I am alive or dead----’ ‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Brown solemnly, ‘I have thought of that. You want somebody to look after you. You will have to make up your mind between two things, between the two greatest things in the world--love and hate. If you hate her more than you love me, I will go. But you must remember, it is not going to come back. I will have to disappear so entirely, that no one will ever hear of me more. I can’t turn up again when you want me, even by stealth, as I do now.’ ‘Why, why?’ said Mrs. Swinford, who had uttered this question again and again, while Mrs. Brown was speaking. ‘Why should you disappear entirely? When it has blown over, when it is forgotten--everything is forgotten after a while.’ ‘Do you think Emily will forget a thing that means her honour, and her child’s inheritance?--you have not forgotten, and it ought to be nothing to you.’ ‘Nothing! You know what it is to me, Artémise.’ ‘Yes, I know what it is to you. It is hate and revenge--and do you think your motives are stronger than hers? You want to pay off an old score, but she wants to live respected and to provide for her child. She will send detectives after me everywhere as soon as she knows. She will have you watched so that I shall never be able to approach you. It will be good-bye for ever between you and me, Cecile, if I am to carry out that rôle----’ ‘Artémise, you are too cruel! You know that I cannot live long without you. You know that seeing you, having you at hand, is my only comfort. I live only while you are here; for the rest of the time I only exist, I vegetate, and hate the light----’