Such as we have described in the last chapter, had been Morley Ernstein's interview with Helen Barham, on the night preceding his early visit to Lady Malcolm. When that worthy lady herself returned, and entered the room where Morley and Juliet Carr were seated, she might well assure him that she was delighted to see him; for she was truly delighted to see him there, in that exact spot, seated by Juliet's side; and yet had she known that he was there, she certainly would not have seen him at all, for she would not have come home for an hour. Lady Malcolm loved Juliet Carr sincerely; she loved Morley Ernstein, too, with affection that had been going on and increasing from his childhood. She thought it the most natural thing in the world that they should love each other, and she was quite sure, to see them wed each other, would very greatly contribute to her own happiness. Whenever circumstances were in such a predicament, Lady Malcolm, who, in these respects, was the wisest as well as the kindest woman in the world, made a point of getting out of the way of the lovers as fast and as far as possible, but, in the present instance, she discovered her young friend's visit too late. Morley's story was quickly told, and Lady Malcolm soon became deeply interested in the fate of Helen Barham. She had lived long enough in the world to comprehend, at a word, the views of Neville, and the sort of danger from which Morley sought to screen the fair being he had befriended. To say sooth, on the mind of Lady Malcolm, the newspaper account of the duel had in some degree produced the effect which Morley had expected it would produce on every one. The bold and candid way, however, in which he now told who the lady was, and how the duel had arisen, not only removed all suspicions from Lady Malcolm's thoughts, but prevented anything like apprehension of Morley's being seriously attached to any one else than Juliet Carr; which--to acknowledge a sad truth--would have been more painful to her, than if her young friend had really been engaged in some passing intrigue; for Lady Malcolm was one of those who, from seeing a great deal of the dissipated society of a court and a metropolis, believed that every young man must and would commit a certain portion of vices and follies; forgetting that those vices and follies, though we may turn from them at an after period and learn to do better, leave behind them stains of two kinds--stains upon our happiness and upon our candour--not only regrets, but suspicions--not only the memory of evil acts, but the knowledge of wickedness and of crime. The tree of which man rebelliously ate in the garden of Eden, was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Had our unhappy first parent paused to consider, he would have known that he possessed already the knowledge of good, and that the prohibition of God referred, in fact, to the tasting of that which could give him the knowledge of evil. He did