Jane Marryott ceased; and for an instant Mary sat with clasped hands, and a stunned expression in her countenance, till at length meeting the gaze of her companion fixed upon her, with a look of regretful concern; she held out her hand and with a wan smile, such as wherewith a patient might express his thanks at the performer of some painful but necessary operation, thanked her again for having satisfied her painful curiosity; sweetly--yet with an expression which much belied the assertion--assuring Jane Marryott when she expressed her fears as to the effect upon her mind this communication had produced--that though pain of course such a relation could not fail to cause her--yet it was not more than she had endured of late, nor more for her to listen than some points of her communication must have been to her, Jane Marryott, to reveal; for even in the absorption of her own feelings, Mary had not failed to mark and to compassionate the look of humbled shame and sorrow, which bowed down the daughter's head in those parts of her relation bearing allusion to her mother, whilst at the same time the honest simplicity of her class and character, had forced her to pass through the ordeal without compromise or circumlocution; and thus from the lips of the stranger of yesterday, there had been revealed in a manner calculated to strike entire conviction upon the mind of the listener, every circumstance which before had been concealed by a dark cloud of mystery--or that the tender consideration of friends had dealt out to her, in the vile daily drop of vague insinuation and report. Stupified and still, she sat for some time after Jane Marryott had taken her departure. Mary having said something at parting about seeing her on the morrow, as Jane Marryott did not leave for Liverpool, the place of her intended embarkation, till she had received the final tidings of her mother's fate; promised to her by Eugene Trevor. But the interview did not take place. Mary sent her a useful present, but was too unwell to see her when she called. CHAPTER XIV. As they, who to their couch at night Would win repose, first quench the light, So must the hopes that keep this breast Awake, be quenched, ere it can rest. MOORE. We left Mary yielding herself to the passive impression made upon her mind by the startling results of that strange conversation; then gradually that mind began to rouse itself to think, and form, and deliberate as to what was to be done--or rather _was_ there anything to be done? Was hers to be the tongue to blaze about the woman's story, to give substance and a shape to the airy-tongued aspersions brought against her lover's name--was this her woman's part? Oh, no; yet something she had to do--some part to act?