Nevertheless, Sidmouth Vane had a knack of being correct in his information, and he was correct in stating that Neaera had gone to Liverpool on business. It was, of course, merely a guess that her errand might be connected with George's, but it happened to be a right guess. Neaera knew well the weak spot in her armour. Hitherto she had been content to trust to her opponent not discovering it; but, as the decisive moment came nearer, a nervous restlessness so far overcame her natural _insouciance_ as to determine her to an effort to complete her defences, in anticipation of any assault upon them. She was in happy ignorance of the chance that had directed George's forces against her vulnerable point, and imagined that she herself was, in all human probability, the only person in London to whom the name of Mrs. Bort would be more than an unmeaning uneuphonious syllable. To her the name was full of meaning; for, from her youth till the day of the happy intervention of that stout and elderly _deus ex machina_, the late Mr. Witt, Mrs. Bort had been to Neaera the impersonation of virtue and morality, and the physical characteristics that had caught Lord Mapledurham's frivolous attention had been to her merely the frowning aspect under which justice and righteousness are apt to present themselves. Neaera was a good-hearted girl, and Mrs. Bort now lived on a comfortable pension, but no love mingled with the sense of duty that inspired the gift. Mrs. Bort had interpreted her quasi-maternal authority with the widest latitude, and Neaera shuddered to remember how often Mrs. Bort's discipline had made her smart, in a way, against which apathy of conscience was no shield or buckler. Recorder Dawkins would have groaned to know how even judicial terrors paled in Neaera's recollection before the image of Mrs. Bort. These childish fears are hard to shake off, and Neaera, as she sped luxuriously to Liverpool, acknowledged to herself that, in that dreadful presence, no adventitious glories of present wealth or future rank would avail her. The governing fact in the situation, the fact that Neaera did not see her way to meet, was that Mrs. Bort was an honest woman. Neaera knew her, and knew that a bribe would be worse than useless, even if she dared to offer it. "And I don't think," said Neaera, resting her pretty chin upon her pretty hand, "that I should dare." Then she laughed ruefully. "I'm not at all sure she wouldn't beat me; and if she did, what could I do?" Probably Neaera exaggerated even the fearless rectitude of Mrs. Bort, but she was so convinced of the nature of the reception which any proposal of the obvious kind would meet with that she made up her mind that her only course was to throw herself on Mrs. Bort's mercy, in case that lady proved deaf to a subtle little proposal which was Neaera's first weapon.