“Henriette, you talk of things you don’t know.” “Don’t know! Why, there is no one in London knows more. I am always listening, and I always remember. De Malfort used to say I had a plaguey long memory, when I told him of things he had said a year ago.” “My dear, I love you fondly, but I cannot have you talk to me of what you don’t understand; and I am sorry Sir Denzil Warner had no more courtesy than to go and complain of me to my sister.” “He did not come to Chilton to complain. Her ladyship met him on the way from Oxford in her coach. He was riding, and she called to him to come to the coach door. It was the day after he left you, and he was looking miserable; and she questioned him, and he owned that his suit had been rejected, and he had no further hope. My mother came home in a rage. But why was she angry with his lordship? Indeed, she rated him as if it were his fault you refused Sir Denzil.” Angela sat silent, and the hand Henriette was clasping grew cold as ice. “Did my father bid you refuse him, aunt?” asked the girl, scrutinising her aunt’s countenance, with those dark grey eyes, so like Fareham’s in their falcon brightness. “No, child. Why should he interfere? It is no business of his.” “Then why was mother so angry? She walked up and down the room in a towering passion. ‘This is your doing,’ she cried. ‘If she were not your adoring slave, she would have jumped at so handsome a sweetheart. This is your witchcraft. It is you she loves—you—you—you!’ His lordship stood dumb, and pointed to me. ‘Do you forget your child is present?’ he said. ‘I forget everything except that everybody uses me shamefully,’ she cried. ‘I was only made to be slighted and trampled upon.’ His lordship made no answer, but walked to the door in that way he ever has when he is angered—pale, frowning, silent. I was standing in his way, and he gripped me by the arm, and dragged me out of the room. I dare venture there is a bruise on my arm where he held me. I know his fingers hurt me with their grip; and I could hear my lady screaming and sobbing as he took me away. But he would not let me go back to her. He would only send her women. ‘Your mother has an interval of madness,’ he said; ‘you are best out of her presence.’ The news of the Dutch ships came the same evening, and my father rode off towards London, and my mother ordered her coach, and followed an hour after. They seemed both distracted; and only because you refused Sir Denzil.” “I cannot help her ladyship’s foolishness, Papillon. She has no occasion for any of this trouble. I am her dutiful, affectionate sister; but my heart is not hers to give or to refuse.” “But was it indeed my father’s fault? Is it because you adore him that you refused Sir Denzil?”