“If anyone had told me,” the old lady went on to say, speaking very calmly and deliberately now, and as if determined that every word should tell--“if anyone had told me, fifteen months ago, that my son’s wife would bring his family--_my_ family, that is to say, that has lived respectable time out of mind--to disgrace, I wouldn’t, no, _I wouldn’t_ have believed it! It’s the first time (though I say it, as perhaps shouldn’t) that a Turton or a Beacham has numbered such a one as you among them; and I never thought to live to see the day when folks could point at one as bears my name, and even her to a wanton!” The word was out at last, the ugly shocking word that struck through Honor’s brain like a knife, and which, when it had passed the lips that spoke it, the irritated woman, when it was too late, possibly wished unsaid. In very truth, there was something startling in the sight of Honor’s livid face and flashing eyes, something almost painful even to the unsympathising witness of her agony in the change which a few outspoken syllables had wrought in that young girl’s countenance. Rising suddenly from her chair, tossing aside with reckless hand the woman’s-work with which she had been occupied, her pretty taper fingers pressed against her throat (for there was a tightening there that felt like suffocation), Honor Beacham stood erect before her stepmother. “You are wicked!” she stammered forth. “A wicked, cruel woman! John would not have used me so--John knows I do not deserve such words. I will go to him--to my husband--I will--” “You will do nothing of the kind. If you do not know your duty, I must teach it to you,” almost shrieked the passionate old woman, losing all command over herself, as the idea of Honor’s appealing to John against his mother presented itself to her mind. “You think, do you, that John--that _my_ son is going to indulge you in all your good-for-nothing ways? Why, girl, he said to me himself that it was high time something was done to bring milady to her senses; he said--”