He arrived late in the evening. Lord Maristow and his daughters were gone out to dinner. The three persons whom Saville especially wished to see, alone occupied the drawing-room. Edward was writing to his father, who had advised him, now that he had a son, entirely to cut off the entail and mortgage a great part of the property: it was a distasteful task to answer the suggestions of unprincipled selfishness. While he was thus occupied, Ethel had taken from her desk her mother's last letter, and was reading it again and again, weighing every syllable, and endeavouring to discover a hidden meaning. She went over to the sofa on which Fanny was sitting, to communicate to her a new idea that had struck her. The studious girl had got into a corner with her Cicero, and was reading the Tusculan Questions, which she readily laid aside to enter on a subject so deeply interesting. Saville opened the door, and appeared most unexpectedly among them. His manner was eager and abrupt, and the first words he uttered were, "I am come to disturb you all, and to beg of you to return to London:--no time must be lost--can you go to-morrow?" "Certainly," said Villiers, "if you wish it." "But why?" asked Ethel. "You have found Lady Lodore!" exclaimed Fanny. "You are dreaming, Fanny," said Ethel; "you see Horace shakes his head. But if we go to-morrow, yet rest to-night. You are fatigued, pale, and ill, Horace--you have been exerting yourself too much--explain your wishes, but take repose and refreshment." Saville was in too excited a state to think of either. He repelled Ethel's feminine offers, till he had related his story. His listeners heard him with amazement. Villiers's cheeks glowed with shame, partly at the injustice of his former conduct--partly at being the object of so much sacrifice and beneficence on the part of his mother-in-law. Fanny's colour also heightened; she clasped her hands in delight, mingling various exclamations with Saville's story. "Did I not say so? I was sure of it. If you had seen her when I did, on the day of her going away, you would have been as certain as I." Ethel wept in silence, her heart was touched to the core, "the remorse of love" awakened in it. How cold and ungrateful had been all her actions: engrossed by her love for her husband, she had bestowed no sympathy, made no demonstrations towards her mother. The false shame and Edward's oft-repeated arguments which had kept her back, vanished from her mind. She reproached herself bitterly for lukewarmness and neglect; she yearned to show her repentance--to seek forgiveness--to express, however feebly, her sense of her mother's angelic goodness. Her tears flowed to think of these things, and that her mother was away, poor and alone, believing herself wronged in all their thoughts, resenting perhaps their unkindness, mourning over the ingratitude of her child.