“Mistress, hear me! have mercy on yourself, and, above all, on _him_. Do not go to that lone, sea-coast house; stay here and wait for him; he has followed you across the sea, he will find you in a few days; see him, lady; listen to him; and then do as you will. Not the most ascetic monk, or nun, or the most puritanical pietist of any persuasion could venture to criticise your course, it has been, through all this trying time, so blameless. Nor could saint nor angel censure you now for receiving him. See him, hear him, lady! Oh, would to Heaven there were some wiser one than I am here to talk to you—some great learned divine in whom you would have confidence. I, alas! I am unlearned in theology, and my simple wisdom of the heart may be despised,” said Susan, almost weeping. “You know that is not so, my child. I would trust the ‘simple wisdom’ of your true heart as soon—aye, sooner than the opinion of the Archbishop of York. Is not your relation to me more nearly that of friend than of an attendant, Susan? Are you not in my confidence? Do I not often take counsel with you, child?” “Yes, dear lady, but—if you would only this once take the _benefit_ of my counsel,” replied the girl with a latent dash of humor that respect for her unhappy mistress kept subdued. “Susan, my good and loving child,” began the lady in a mournful voice, “I will tell you, then, why I may not see Lord Montressor. True, the haunter of my days is dead—but _not_ dead is the dreadful memory that I had been his—‘victim’—as good Mr. Oldfield mercifully termed it. True, also, that the law and the church not only acquitted, but vindicated me—not only pronounced me not guilty but positively INNOCENT; but that does not free me from the clinging degradation of having been tried upon a criminal charge! My peace is ruined, my fame blighted, my hopes blasted—I am a human wreck, a walking shadow, a living death—unfit to match with the vital glory of Charles Montressor’s future. He is a man of brilliant genius. He is distinguished, and will be celebrated. Every successful man has hosts of bitter, carping, envious foes—vigilant, quick, cruel, in seizing, denouncing, and exposing any possible flaw in his life, character, or circumstances. Shall _such_ have power to say of Lord Montressor—‘He married the “victim” of a French conspirator’—‘His wife was once a prisoner before Exeter Assizes.’ No, no! Oh, no! Merciful Heaven, no!” “But, lady! sweet mistress! hear your poor Susan, yet a little while longer. Suppose you let his lordship have a voice in deciding this matter, which concerns his happiness quite as much as it does yours. Suppose you let him say to you what we know he says to himself—‘I prize this precious hand of yours more highly than all that mankind could possibly lavish upon me. I should consider the loss of it a heavier calamity than the loss of the favor of the whole world’—what then?”