"Duty is always hard, my child," said Lady Margaret. She entirely believed it, and looked on herself as a martyr, a pattern of self-devotion and womanly virtue. But, had she been certain of escaping discovery, she would have slipped the koh-i-noor into her belt-pouch, notwithstanding. Never once in her life had she done or abstained from doing a thing _because_ that thing was right or was wrong. Such a person, be she as old and as hard as the hills, is mere putty in the fingers of Beelzebub. Hesper rose and went to her own room. There, for a long hour, she sat--with the skin of her fair face drawn tight over muscles rigid as marble--sat without moving, almost without thinking--in a mere hell of disgusted anticipation. She neither stormed nor wept; her life went smoldering on; she nerved herself to a brave endurance, instead of a far braver resistance. I fancy Hesper would have been a little shocked if one had called her an atheist. She went to church most Sundays--when in the country; for, in the opinion of Lady Margaret, it was not decorous _there_ to omit the ceremony: where you have influence you ought to set a good example--of hypocrisy, namely! But, if any one had suggested to Hesper a certain old-fashioned use of her chamber-door, she would have inwardly laughed at the absurdity. But, then, you see, her chamber was no closet, but a large and stately room; and, besides, how, alas! _could_ the child of Roger and Lady M. Alice Mortimer know that in the silence was hearing--that in the vacancy was a power waiting to be sought? Hesper was not much alone, and here was a chance it was a pity she should lose; but, when she came to herself with a sigh, it was not to pray, and, when she rose, it was to ring the bell. A good many minutes passed before it was answered. She paced the room--swiftly; she could sit, but she could not walk slowly. With her hands to her head, she went sweeping up and down. Her maid's knock arrested her before her toilet-table, with her back to the door. In a voice of perfect composure, she desired the woman to ask Miss Yolland to come to her. Entering with a slight stoop from the waist, Sepia, with a long, rapid, yet altogether graceful step, bore down upon Hesper like a fast-sailing cutter over broad waves, relaxing her speed as she approached her. "Here I am, Hesper!" she said. "Sepia," said Hesper, "I am sold." Miss Yolland gave a little laugh, showing about the half of her splendid teeth--a laugh to which Hesper was accustomed, but the meaning of which she did not understand--nor would, without learning a good deal that were better left unlearned. "To Mr. Redmain, of course!" she said. Hesper nodded. "When are you going to be--"--she was about to say "cut up" but there was a something occasionally visible in Hesper that now and then checked one of her less graceful coarsenesses. "When is the purchase to be completed?" she asked, instead.