‘Oh, you are wrong, wrong!’ cries she vehemently. ‘Somebody has been telling you what is not true, what is not the case! Mr. Wyndham does not—does not’—she trembles violently—‘love me. Not me—anyone but me. Oh! who could have said such a thing? Believe me, do believe me’—she comes forward, holding out her hands imploringly—‘when I tell you that I am the last girl in the world he would fall in love with. If you know this young lady he loves, go back to her, I implore you, and tell her it is all untrue—that he loves her, and her only, and that all she has heard to the contrary is not worth one thought. Oh, madam! If he should be hurt through me!... After all his goodness to me! Oh ... go ... go to her and tell her what I say!’ She stops, and covers her face suddenly with her hands. She is not crying, however. Tears are far from her eyes. But the misery of death has swept over her soul. Mrs. Prior gives way to a low laugh. ‘Why didn’t you go on the stage?’ she says. ‘You would have made even a better living there. But perhaps you have only just come off it?’ The girl lets her hand drop to her sides, and turns passionately upon her. ‘Why won’t you believe me?’ cries she, with sudden wild vehemence. ‘What have I done that you should disbelieve my word?’ Her eyes are bright with grief and the eager desire that is consuming her to make things straight for Wyndham and the girl he loves. Wyndham, who has been so good to her, who has brought her out of such deep waters! To hurt him—to injure him: the very thought is unbearable. She has involuntarily—unknowingly—drawn up her _svelte_ and slender body to its fullest height, and with a courage that few women could have found under circumstances so poignant, so filled with agonized memory, and with yet another feeling that perhaps is bitterest of all (though hardly known), she looks full at her tormentor. ‘Can’t you see,’ cries she, with a proud humility, ‘how wrong you must be? How could I interfere between Mr. Wyndham and the woman he loves? Who am I? Nothing!’ She throws up her beautiful head with a touch of inalienable pride, and repeats the word distinctly: ‘Nothing!’ ‘Less than nothing,’ says Mrs. Prior, who is only moved to increased and unendurable hatred by her beauty and her unconscious hauteur. ‘So far as he regards you!’ Ella draws her breath quickly. ‘If so small in his regard, how then do I prevent his marriage with the girl he loves?’ Alas for the sorrow of her voice! It might have touched the heart of anyone. Mrs. Prior, however, is impervious to such touches. ‘Don’t you think it very absurd, your pretending like this?’ says she contemptuously. ‘Of course, in spite of the absurd innocence you pretend, one can see that you quite understand the situation, and how unpleasantly you are in the way. If he had brought you anywhere but here, it might have been hushed up, but to the very house his poor mother left him—why, it is an open scandal, and an insult to my daughter!’