The room into which the three had been thrust so unceremoniously was poorly illumined by two wax candles on the table. It had been intended as a place to which cronies might retreat to gossip or talk politics, and perhaps also to which couples might retire for the making and answering the eventful proposal. There was stillness within, after the noise without. Jane looked hastily around, and seeing that there was no one else present, said to Winefred with vehemence, 'My child! my child! They shall not take you from me that I never see you more.' 'Mother, no. They shall not.' 'And you did not write that it was with your consent?' 'With my consent!' [Illustration: SHE WAS CLASPED IN THE ARMS OF THIS GIRL, HER BURNING CHEEKS WERE KISSED.] 'That I should be pensioned off and moved away, so that we might never, never meet again, that I might never, never see your face more.' 'Mother, I could not write that, you know it. Nothing would make me do such a thing.' 'I felt here,' said the woman, surging up, as she pressed her hands to her heart, 'I felt here that it could not be. But yet I was uneasy. I could not say――among grand folk, what had been spoken and done to wean you away. I thought that you might feel that I lowered you.' 'Never,' exclaimed Winefred, and turned sharply about to face her father. 'Who wrote that?' 'It was he, then,' said Mrs. Marley, 'he who has been my woe from the moment I came to know him.' 'I――I wrote nothing,' faltered Mr. Holwood; 'I am quite innocent in this matter. I believe it was Mrs. Tomkin-Jones who wrote.' 'You did not write with your hand, but with hers,' said Jane wrathfully. 'You admit, you know that she wrote. It was you. Cursed be the tongue that proved my undoing, cursed be the heart that devised this new cruelty.' 'Mother!' entreated Winefred, and she put her hand on Jane Marley's mouth.