“I want nothing explained,” cried the girl. “Do you think I have any doubt of _her_? I could not bear that she should explain--as if I did not know what she is! But, Uncle John, let us all go together to the judge that can do it, and tell him everything, and get him to break the will.” “The judge who can do that is not to be found in Westminster, Rosalind. It must be one that sees into the heart. I believe in her too--without any reason--but to take it to law would only be to make our domestic misery a little better known.” Rosalind looked at him with large eyes full of light and excitement. She felt strong enough to defy the world. “Do you mean to say that, whatever happens, though we could prove what we know of her, that she is the best--the best woman in the world--” “Were she as pure as ice, as chaste as snow, there is nothing to be done. Your father does not say, because of this or that. What he says is absolute. If she continue with the children, or in communication with them, they lose everything.” “Then let us lose everything,” cried Rosalind in her excitement; “rather be poor and work for our bread, than lose our mother.” John Trevanion shook his head. “She has already chosen,” he said. CHAPTER XXV. Russell left Highcourt in such wild commotion of mind and temper, such rage, grief, compunction, and pain, that she was incapable of any real perception of what had happened, and did not realise, until the damp air blowing in her face as she hurried across the park, sobbing and crying aloud, and scarcely able to keep herself from screaming, brought back her scattered faculties, either what it was that she had been instrumental in doing, or what she had brought upon herself. She did not now understand what it was that had happened to Madam, though she had a kind of vindictive joy, mingled with that sinking of the heart which those not altogether hardened to human suffering feel in regarding a catastrophe brought about by their means, in the thought that she had brought illimitable, irremediable harm to her mistress, whom she had always hated. She had done this whatever might come of it, and even in the thrill of her nerves that owned a human horror of this calamity, there was a fierce exhilaration of success in having triumphed over her enemy. But perhaps she had never wished, never thought, of so complete a triumph. The desire of revenge, which springs so naturally in the undisciplined mind, and is so hot and reckless in its efforts to harm its object, has most generally no fixed intention, but only a vague wish to injure, or, rather, punish; for Russell, to her own consciousness, was inspired by the highest moral sentiment, and meant only to bring retribution on the wicked and to open the eyes of a man who was deceived. She did not understand what had really occurred, but the fact that she had ruined her mistress was at the same time terrible and delightful to her. She did not mean so much as that; but no doubt Madam