“Indeed,” replied my Lady hastily. “How is it, then, that I have heard nothing of it? But I forgot; it is _you_ who have his secrets now. Yes, you shall write, not I. Tell him that I am sorry--sorry that he should have deceived me above all; but that I forgive him freely. He knows that, however, right well. He must not come back to Mirk until he hears from me; and you, Rose, you must join him without delay. Every member of this household must learn at once that you are Walter's wife; but not till you have gone--for Richard's sake.” My Lady's thoughts, as always, were for others; even when this great blow had well-nigh stunned her, she did not permit herself the luxury of selfish grief. She was already busy with schemes for the benefit of her erring boy; how to contrive and where to save without prejudice to Sir Richard's interests (for _that_ must be now avoided above everything) so that a respectable allowance might be meted out to the young couple. She could not respect, and far less love the girl who had become her Walter's wife in so clandestine a manner; but still she _was_ his wife, and therefore, in her eyes, a something precious. Then, bad as matters were, they might have been far worse; she had fully expected that they were so; and she felt in some sort grateful to accept this product of rashness and deceit in place of downright shame. Moreover, she foresaw in her own mind, for ever dwelling on such contingencies, that out of this evil a certain good might come, in case of that terrible misfortune befalling her, compared with which this present sorrow was as the prick of a pin's point. Rose, upon her part, had certainly cause for congratulation upon the result of this interview. Although her weapon of offence had failed her--and she was genuinely convinced of the groundlessness of her late suspicions concerning Lady Lisgard--she had found in her mother-in-law a most generous adversary, and one certainly far more forgiving than she deserved. Even the worst of us, I conclude, are not bad at all times, and when my Lady, as they parted, touched her brow with her pale lips, and murmured once more: “Be a kind wife to him, Rose,” that young woman mustered an honest tear or two--of which articles, to do her justice, she did not keep, like some women, a constant supply on hand for social emergencies.