“I’ll tell you what, Milly,” said Harry, “I must say I think it’s very hard the poor old lady should lose her good name for something that happened an age ago. No doubt, by what we saw to-day, she must have set her poor old heart upon resisting and denying it, as foolish people always try to do. Now, you know, that’s evidently of no use. Of course a mere statement of any such claim having been made, is enough to finish Miss Mortimer, with all the gossips of the county, whether it was proved or not. Now I shan’t be here for long, and as they seem disposed to be so very kind to you----” “Don’t, Harry!” “But I must,” said he. “It will be no end of consolation to me to think of you in these pretty rooms which Miss Milly has already prepared for you. If I can do them a good turn before I go, I will, you may depend upon it. As soon as we return to Chester I’ll see Luigi; and if it can be got out of him what he wants, I shall certainly make an effort to have him satisfied, and Miss Mortimer left unmolested. It would not do if sins of thirty years standing were to be brought against people in this way. Why, anybody might be thrown into sudden shame on such a principle; and you women, you know, are so vindictive and all that----” “Oh, yes! I know,” said I, “and will always be vindictive all the same. Imagine this woman standing side by side with Aunt Milly, and considered as spotless as she; imagine such a long cruel abominable sin, and no retribution overtaking it! Oh, you may be pitiful if you like, but it disgusts me.” Harry laughed. “I should be surprised if it did not disgust you, Milly darling,” he said, “but poetic justice is exploded now-a-days. I don’t suppose Luigi can be very anxious for her personal affection, considering how she seems to have behaved; and, indeed, to be sure he would be fully more disgraced than she. How many days are we to be here? I shall see him whenever we return to Chester.” “Three days longer,” said I, with a sigh. “Somehow this little visit to the Park had come to look like a little barrier between me and what was coming. Presently we should go back to Chester, and then----” Harry understood my sigh. He repeated the very words I was saying in my mind. “And then----” said Harry, “and then, darling, to see which of us two is bravest! But it will come hardest upon you, my poor little wife.” “Harry,” cried I, “don’t speak!” and I went away, and would have no more of such talk. It was enough that it was coming; it would be enough when it came.