"You'll listen to what I am saying," cried Mrs. Ellison. "You've been leading him on, and now you presume to reject him--to reject the roof over your head and the bread in your mouth. Why, I never thought of him seriously for you! You've ruined us both in every way, yourself and me. Why, can't you see that if we stayed here he had to be for one or the other of us? And could you not know that I wanted him for myself? Oh, don't say 'wait'--don't speak to me! I know it all as well as if I had seen it. Now, you've got to walk, that's all." "Oh, mamma, mamma," cried Miss Lady, "do not!" "'Oh, mamma, mamma!'" mocked the other; "stop your tongue, girl, and don't you dare to call me 'mamma' again. I am not your mother, and never was!" Miss Lady gasped and went pale, but the cruel voice went on. "You don't know what you are, or who you are. You're nothing, you're nobody! You had no chance except what I could give you, and you'll never know now what a chance that was! I would have made you, girl. I would have done something with you, something for us both--but not now, ah, no, not now! You, to cut me out from the only man I ever really did want!" Miss Lady rose, suddenly aflame with resentment, and feeling a courage which came she knew not whence. "Madam," said she, with calmness in spite of her anger, "I don't know what you mean by this, but I am certain you are telling the truth. I will not talk to you at all. You degrade us both. As to Colonel Blount, I never said a word, I never did the first thing--I didn't--I didn't tell him anything--I could not help--" "You could not help! You could not help! Of course you could not help! Neither can I help. But the main thing, after all, is that you have thrown away a home for both of us--" "Madam," said Miss Lady, now very quiet and calm, "there is only one thing certain in all the world to me at this moment, and that is that you do not love me, that you never will, and that I don't feel toward you as I should. It is as you say. I could not stay here now; I shall have to go somewhere. Colonel Blount himself knows that. He said so." "Your mother!" resumed Mrs. Ellison, laughing shrilly, "I am about as much your mother"--she began, but caught herself up; "you are nobody, I say, and you'll have to go take care of yourself as best you can. You don't know what you're throwing away, young woman. If you had left things to me there would have been none of this trouble. Now I shall have to go too, for I would die rather than stay here now. I hate that man!" Miss Lady for a moment saw the naked soul of this woman whom she had called her mother, even as at that moment she saw her own soul; and between this which she saw and that which remained in her own bosom, she recognized no kinship. Problems there were for her, but this was not one of them. "Madam," said she at length, with a dignity beyond her years, "you are right. We must go, both of us; but we shall not go together."