Mary fulfilled these prognostications to the letter. She never closed her eyes all night, but pictured to herself all the horrors of suicide; the discovery of what had happened, the guilt of which she would never feel herself free all her life. She said to herself, indeed, a hundred times that people who threaten such dreadful acts never perform them, but then reflected that many people had taken comfort from such a thought and then found themselves confronted by a horrible fact contradicting everything. It might be folly for a hundred times, yet if once it should come true! Mary, who had never seen old Lord Frogmore, figured to herself a sneering dreadful old man, whose satirical looks would be enough to make life intolerable. She had read of such men in books, and specially of the relations of the husband who would pursue with rancour or contempt a wife whom they did not approve. She went over it so often in her waking dreams that she seemed to see the dreadful old cynic whose very glance would be like a sharp arrow. Poor Letitia! It was bad enough to have a brother like Ralph without exhibiting him at his very worst to the old lord. Though the sight of the man, who had once been her hero, in his fallen state was dreadful to poor Mary, it became more and more plain to her that she must see him; that she must even ask him to see her, and execute Letitia’s will and clear this obstacle out of her friend’s path even if she herself were to die of it, as Letitia threatened she would. Mary’s heart jumped up in her throat and beat like a fluttering bird as if it would escape altogether from her bosom at the thought. How was she to speak to him, to argue with him, to persuade him? What words could she find to bid him leave his sister’s house and never show himself there again. Poor Ralph! Her tender heart pitied him too--he was a terrible apparition, shaming the past, a scare and horror in the present, but what could be so dreadful for a man coming back after so many years as to be disowned and turned away by his nearest relations--to be forbidden his sister’s house? Mary thought, but with a thrill of horror, what she would have done had he been her own brother, or if Will or Harry should come back like that. What misery would be so dreadful, what misfortune so terrible! But Mary knew well that she would never turn her back upon “the boys” whatever happened. The worse things were, they would have the more need of her. She would stand up for them, cover their faults, invent virtues for them if they had not any, make everybody but herself believe that they were guiltless. Oh! nobody should say a word against those who were dear to her--no one! Not husband nor husband’s kin--no one, not even if it was the Queen herself. Mary said this to herself with a burst of generous indignation--and then her heart sank down, down into the depths, thinking of Letitia’s threat, of Letitia perhaps possibly--if it were