"No, no, Laurence," she said; "bear with me. I did not mean it; not quite that. Can you not understand me? Ah, my God! how pitiless men are! While they want to win us, where is the end of that toleration? We may sin as we please, provided we do not sin against them and their self-love. But when that is over, they cannot judge us harshly enough; they have even less pardon and pity for the sins into which they have driven us than for any others." "You are talking utter nonsense, Mrs. Hammond," said Sir Laurence; "and nonsense it is painful for me to hear. Your temptations are of your own making, and your sins are of your own counselling, not mine. I would have made you my wife, but you preferred--and I thank you for the choice--another destiny. Am I to blame? You have chosen to cherish a distempered fancy which has no foundation in truth, and am I the ruthless being who has robbed you of it? You have chosen to solace the tedium of your uncongenial marriage by a proceeding as vile and unprincipled as any woman ever ventured on, to her eternal shame. Harsh words, Mrs. Hammond, but true; and now you endeavour to lend an air of melodrama to a transaction which was in reality as commonplace as it was coarse. You find it hard to put your relation with Sir Charles Mitford on a sentimental footing,--he is hardly a subject for sentiment, I think; and you have invented this tragical theory of an indirect revenge upon me. Tush! I gave you credit for more tact." This was well and boldly said; for Sir Laurence had but one object in view,--to do the best he could for Lady Mitford in this encounter with her foe. He knew as he spoke, as he looked into the unmasked face before him--pale and deformed with jarring passions--that the motive was real, though secondary; it had indeed only come to supplement the first, which had led Laura to employ her fascinations upon Sir Charles; but it had always been stronger, and had latterly completely swallowed up the other.