“You may be sorry, but that doesn’t make any difference. If we could change things by being sorry----! not that I am sorry,” said Lady Frogmore, “my only comfort is that my marriage and all that which she disliked so, has done Letitia no harm.” “She disliked it very much. Oh that is far too gentle a way of putting it, she said dreadful things to you, Mary.” “Did she! don’t make me think of them. I am quite in charity with her now. Poor Letitia, she needn’t look reproachful any longer. She has got all she wanted now.” “Mary,” said Agnes, “you are mistaken. It is your little boy that is Lord Frogmore.” “Tut, tut,” said Mary, with an impatient movement of her hands, “you go on like that only to worry me. Of course, I should always be kind to him if my dear lord adopted him. But adoption won’t go so far as that. No, no. I am tired of hearing of this child. Let’s speak of him no more.” “Mary, if it were to be proved to you--by eye-witness--that he was your child?” “Proved to me!” cried Lady Frogmore. “Should not I myself be the chief witness?” Her smile was so perfectly satisfied in its faint indulgent compassion for her sister’s folly, and the look of uneasiness with which she turned from this perpetual repetition of a disagreeable subject was so natural that Agnes’ heart sank. “I think I must go to bed,” she added. “It has been a hard day, and even though one does not sleep, lying down is always a rest.” “Shall I read to you, Mary, till you go to sleep?” “No, my dear. Go to sleep yourself, Agnes. We shall both be better quiet. It will be another life to-morrow,” said Mary, dismissing her sister with a kiss. Poor Agnes went away with a heart almost too sick and sad for thought. She had failed more miserably than the rest. And she did not know now what to say or do; or whether it was best to make no further attempt, to leave everything to the action of time and the guidance of events. It is more easy to adopt the most laborious or heroic measures than to take up this passive plan of operation, and it cost Agnes a great deal to relinquish the effort to set her sister right. Would she ever learn what was right? Would she ever come to a true knowledge of what had passed? or if she did, would the discovery be accompanied by a convulsion which would again rend their life in pieces. That possibility must always be taken into consideration. At present Mary was perfectly sane, and as composed in her gentle thoughts as anyone could be. But if she were urged beyond measure; if this great fact which she ignored were to be rudely pressed upon her, what might happen? Her recovery was still new, her mind fresh fledged, so to speak; too feeble to take many flights. But how to be patient and bear with this Agnes did not know. Those who have to deal with a persistent delusion have need for double patience. It is so difficult not to think that there is perversity in it, or that the deceived person could not understand if they would.