Away went the ecclesiastical slippers to the other end of the room; some wool got entangled in her hands, and she snapped it impatiently in two in preference to unwinding it; she turned to Mattie, full of reproach, fear, and indignation. Yes, the love was living still! Mattie might have known long ago that it had never died away, and that to keep it in subjection had been the task which Harriet had set herself, and failed in. "They will murder him!--you have let them take him away to work their dangerous experiments upon, and you will have to answer for this!" "Sidney was resolved--his cousin wished it--I had no power to stop it." "Mattie, he loves you. He would have done as you wished." "Who says he loves me?" asked Mattie. "I have never uttered a word to give you that belief, Harriet--have I?" "No--but----" "I don't own it now--I say nothing, but ask you to come with me. If I loved him, or mistrusted you, should I be here?" "What am I to do?" asked the bewildered Harriet. "Oh! tell me, what can I do?" "Maurice Hinchford thinks it possible--I think it possible--that Sidney may wish to speak to you before or afterwards. We may retire and see him not, or we may face him. If it should end as we all pray not, and hope not, you, at least, must not be away!" "No, no!--I would not be away from him for all the world," cried Harriet. "I will go with you at once." She darted out of the room, and Mr. Wesden seemed to take her place as if by magic before Mattie. "What's it all mean, my girl?" Mattie had to struggle with many conflicting emotions, and sober down sufficiently to relate the nature of her visit. Before she had half finished her statement, Harriet was with them again. "Let us go at once, Mattie!--father will hear all when I return." She almost dragged Mattie from the room; they were both in the cab, and rattling away from Camberwell, before Mr. Wesden fully comprehended that they had left him. "Mattie, it is kind of you to think of me at this time," said Harriet. "You have read me more truly than I have read myself. I am a wicked and unjust woman." "No--that's not true." "I have had wicked thoughts of you--you that I have known so long, and should have estimated so truly, knowing what you have ever been to me. But, oh! Mattie, I have been so wretched and unhappy, that you _will_ forgive me?" "Don't say any more, please." Harriet looked askance at the pale face beside her--the eyes were half closed, and the thin lips compressed. "Do you feel ill?" "No--the excitement of all this may have been a little too much for me--we will not talk of ourselves just now. Time enough for your confession, and for mine, when we return." "How shall we return?--with what hopes or fears of him? What made his cousin and you think of me being near him? Did _he_ wish it?" "I don't know." "Has _he_ thought of me all this while?--loved me despite all? Oh! if that were true, Mattie." "If it were true, Harriet--what a difference!"