“It is not wonderful you should think so,” said Agnes, “you have been so little here.” “Only all the time I have been married,” said Mary, with a faint, uneasy smile. “No, my dear, only a year and a half at first. It is five years and more since you were taken away.” “I don’t know what you mean,” said Mary; “but I am not able to argue, and you are all in a story, as if you wanted to make me believe---- You think I will feel it so much--I know that is your motive. You think that to give up my house and be only the Dowager, while Letitia is here----” “Mary, you must try to open your eyes to the real state of affairs: why shouldn’t you stay here--with your boy? He ought to be brought up in his own house.” “Agnes, will you torment me too? Did Frogmore say that? Did he want me to pretend--oh, no! no! My dear old lord would never have done so--for he was true, as true as steel.” “My poor dear, it is you who are not true--you have been so ill, Mary--you have been away for a long, long time. You were driven into it at the time you were so weak, just before the baby was born. Try and throw back your mind, oh, Mary, dear. Don’t you recollect when the baby was coming. When you were all so happy, dear Frogmore the most of all. Mary, think! when the baby was coming----” Mary’s pale face flushed. She shook her head. “I never wished it,” she said. “Oh no, I never wished it--to ruin little Duke and do Letitia all that harm----” “Letitia! who did her best to kill you--who came when you were weak, and reproached you, and said--horrible things. Mary, Mary, rouse yourself! Do not let her succeed in her bad, bad intent. She hoped the baby would die. And almost as well if he had, poor child,” cried Agnes, in the petulance of her misery, “when his mother disowns him. His father is dead, and his mother has forgotten him. Oh, poor child, poor child.” This did not move Mary as she had hoped. She said sadly, “Yes, I know, Letitia was not very kind. But it was not wonderful. If I had been the means of keeping her husband and her children out of the title--out of their inheritance. Would you have taken it better, Agnes? I should not--if I had had children----” Her voice shook a little. “I do remember a time when I suppose there were hopes--and I felt very happy for a moment--and dear Frogmore----” “Yes,” said Agnes, anxiously. “But it all went off. I have been thinking of that all the time, while you have been saying such strange things. I fainted or something, and there was an end of it. I think I was sorry after, but I’m glad now not to have done any harm to Letitia and her boy.” “Oh, Mary! if you were to see your own boy, your own boy! and hear him call you mother, don’t you think that would bring things back to your mind.” “If I had a boy, Agnes,” said Lady Frogmore with a faint, half-reproachful smile, “I should not want that; but you know I never had a child.” “O, my dear, my dear!” cried Agnes, wringing her hands.