"Look at me," continued Julia, "look at my figure, and tell me if you believed all this would come to pass? When you assured me that wealth and rank was happiness and virtue, did you think I should return a fugitive, to seek shelter at your hands?" "Julia!" gasped Lady Wetheral, "Julia! go! who are _you_?" "Go?" exclaimed Lady Ennismore, "where shall I go? To Clara? Shall I rest with poor Clara? Must I be laid by poor Clara, to find peace after my sacrifice, my absence, and my griefs?" The tremour which attacked Lady Wetheral's frame was alarming. It precluded speech: she hid her face with her hands, as Lady Ennismore proceeded. "For quitting a husband's home, I may be censured and avoided by the world, for it may never know my provocations and my struggles, but I should not be turned from my mother's presence! I should not be banished by the author of all my misery, as if she had no part in the misery which I endure!" "Do not say so--oh, do not say so! Do not blame me, as Clara did!" Lady Wetheral sobbed aloud. "I reproach no one," answered Lady Ennismore, mournfully. "I reproach no one, though I was promised happiness as the wife of Ennismore. Where is that happiness? You foretold it, mother. You said I should for ever enjoy wealth and station, and become the envied gaze of thousands! Where is it all?" "Cease, cease!" cried Lady Wetheral, wrung by feelings of alarm and self-reproach. "I wished you to marry Pynsent, Julia!" "Cruel mother," exclaimed Lady Ennismore, as she caught her hand, and looked earnestly in her face, "do not say so, to drive me wilder than my poor brain feels now! Did you not hold up Ennismore to my view, as a creature to worship? Did you not tell me his coronet was worth a daring grasp, if I could gain the courtly bauble? Oh, you bid me secure the lofty establishment, and I did so, and have suffered! I wish I was with poor dead Clara! We both turned from our father, and would not heed his mild precepts. We listened to projects which suited our ambitious nature, though he deprecated the unholy passion. Oh, mother, you fostered the wild and dangerous feeling! I wish I was laid by the side of Clara! I wish I was at rest, like her!" "Bevan, Bevan," ejaculated Lady Wetheral, "where are you?" Mrs. Bevan curtseyed as she stood in mute astonishment behind her lady's sofa. She was unable to speak: her eyes were riveted upon Lady Ennismore, who still grasped her mother's hand, and still continued her wild address. "This has been a fearful affair! Two of us have fallen--one into the grave, and one into living sorrow--self-banished from a heartless home. Is it not a fearful thing?" "Do not blame me, as Clara did--do not blame me for your flight, Julia," said Lady Wetheral, endeavouring to withdraw her hand, but Lady Ennismore clasped it more closely. "I blame no one--but two of us are lost for ever. I blame no one!"