‘I will tell you why,’ burst out Gilbert, a sudden impulse to confidence rushing to his heart like a wave; ‘it is true, Granny--that is the reason. If I cannot marry her I shall never be happy again.’ Sitting alone that night, he asked himself why he should have spoken. What power, good or evil, is answerable for the sudden gusts of change that shake us? Why do we sometimes turn traitor to our own character? How is it that forces, foreign to everything in our nature, will, at some undreamed-of instant, sweep us from the attitude we have maintained all our lives? The answer is that our souls are more sensitive than our brains. But Gilbert, as he thought of his act, did not blame himself. Neither did eternal wisdom, which watched from afar and saw everything. CHAPTER XIII PLAIN SPEAKING THE outward signs of Lady Eliza’s wrath endured for a few days after Crauford’s untimely mistake, and then began to die a lingering death; but her determination that the enemy should make amends was unabated. In her heart, she did not believe that Cecilia cared for her suitor, and that being the case, she knew her well enough to be sure that nothing would make her marry him. For this she was both glad and sorry. It would have been easy, as Crauford had applied to her, to discover the state of the girl’s feelings; and should she find her unwilling to accept him, convey the fact to Fullarton and so end the matter. But that course was not at all to her mind; Lady Fordyce should, if Cecilia were so inclined, pay for her words. She should write the letter her son had undertaken to procure, and he should present it and be refused. She was thinking of that as she sat on a bench in the garden at Morphie, and she smiled rather fiercely. The development she promised herself was, perhaps, a little hard on Crauford, but, as we all know, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, and that did not concern her; written words had the powerful effect upon her that they have upon most impulsive people. She was no schemer, and was the last being on earth to sit down deliberately to invent trouble for anyone; but all the abortive maternity in her had expended itself upon Cecilia, and to slight her was the unforgivable sin.