I CANNOT, for my own part, at all agree with the depreciatory expressions used by Mistress Forest with respect to Miss Rose Aynton's personal appearance. “What Master Walter could have seen in her,” &c., it was easy enough for anybody else to see who was not of her own sex. A magnificent figure, masses of silken hair that, when unbound, would ripple almost to her dainty feet, and a countenance “bright as light, and clear as wind;” and indeed this latter was too keen and sharply cut for my taste. The sort of expression which one likes to see in one's lawyer, does not so well become the object of our heart's affections. Of course, there was nothing of steel about Miss Rose, except what might have been in her crinoline; but I never saw man or woman who gave me so much the idea of being armed cap-À-pied; she seemed to be equipped in a complete Milan suit of proof, impregnable, invulnerable. Like Le Noir FainÉant in Ivanhoe, she never attacked anybody, although my Lady fancied she had recently detected signs of aggression about her; and those who knew her best avoided putting the temptation in her way. But when she entered her hostess's boudoir by invitation, upon that particular morning, she looked not only, as usual, on her guard; there was also a certain slumbrous fire in her dark eyes, which betokened onslaught—the initiative of battle. My Lady herself remarked it, not without pity. “How little is this poor lost creature aware,” thought she, “that I know all.”

But she was quite wrong in this. Miss Rose had almost gathered the truth from the trembling fingers and frightened manner of her tiring-maid that morning; and the thing had been quite confirmed to her by the malicious triumph with which Mary Forest had delivered her mistress's request to see her in the boudoir upon very particular business.

“Will you please to sit down, Miss Aynton?”

Yes, it was so. The secret was out. Not even a morning salutation from her friend and hostess; and the hand only outstretched to point her out a chair at the other extremity of the room. “Before proceeding with what I have to say,” began my Lady, “I wish to know whether your aunt is in town.”

“I believe so, Lady Lisgard; I think she has come back from Leamington—although I have not heard from her for the last two days.”

“That is well. When I hinted, yesterday morning, that it would be better for you to return to London, I was unaware of the necessity for your departure from this roof at once—immediately—and for ever.”

“Indeed!” Not a muscle moved: confident in the goodness, if not of her cause, at least of her Milan suit; conscious, too, of the possession of a Damascus poniard, undreamed of by the foe, and admirable for close encounters, her right hand nervously opened and shut as though to clutch the handle—that was all.

“You have disgraced this house and me: yourself and your sex.”

“You lie, insolent woman,” returned the other; “and judge others by yourself.”

Each started to her feet, and looked her enemy in the face as she slung these words of flame.

“It is worse than useless, girl, thus to brazen it out,” continued my Lady, attaching no importance to the emphasis the other laid upon her last words. “Outraging not only moral laws, but even the rites of hospitality, you have intrigued with my own son under my own roof.”

“You dare to say so, Lady Lisgard, do you? It is only for his sake, I swear, that I do not brand you Wanton, for that calumny. I could do it; you know I could, although you wear that look of wonder. Was not that man Derrick once your lover? Ah! you wince at that. Sir Robert—good, easy man—he knew nothing, of course”——

Here she stopped, for my Lady's face was terrible to look upon.

“Be silent, bad, bold girl! You shoot your poisoned arrows at a venture, and aim nothing home. You know not what a wife should be—how should you? You!”

It is not true that the swan is “born to be the only graceful shape of Scorn.” A fair woman unjustly slandered is its rival therein. Rose Aynton cowered before that keen contempt—beneath the dropping of those bitter words—-as though they were sword and fire.

“I will never forgive you this, Lady Lisgard,” muttered she—“never, never!”

“You! you forgive! To such as you, it would be idle to protest my soul is spotless. The man whose name you have soiled by uttering it—my husband—he, in high heaven, knows right well that never so much as thought of mine has wronged him. Vile, evil-minded girl, as false as frail!”

“That is sufficient, madam; almost enough, even if I were indeed the thing you take me for.” Here the girl paused to moisten her dry lips, and catch her breath, of which passion had almost deprived her. “Now, look you, I was wrong. I thought my Lady was not so lily-pure as the world took her to be, and I was wrong. I have seen things with my own eyes, and through the eyes of others, that might well entitle me to say: 'I still believe it,' I tell you, Lady Lisgard, I have proofs—or what seemed to me to be so, a few minutes back—of the charge that has so moved you, such as would amply justify my disbelief in your denial. But I honestly avow that I was wrong.”

“I thank you, Miss Rose Aynton, for your charity.”

“Spare your scorn, madam. It is no charity that moves me; nay, far from it. Convinced almost against my will, I own, by your unsupported assertion—your mÈre 'No,' I have withdrawn an accusation for which I have been patiently preparing evidence this long time—not, indeed, for your hurt, but for my own safety and convenience, and hereby confess it baseless and unjust. Now, on your part, I do beseech you, make amends to me. You, too, have had your seeming proofs of my disgrace; you, too, have heard and seen yourself, or through the eyes and ears of others, certain”——

“Add not, lost, wretched girl,” interposed my Lady, “deceit to sin! All that is left you is to pray to Heaven for pardon, and to leave that hospitable roof which you have disgraced.”

Rose Aynton's gipsy face grew drawn and pale. She had aimed her blow, and missed; the weapon in which she had put so much trust had proved utterly good for nothing. All her schemes of the last few months were rendered fruitless, and the discoveries to which she had attached such vast importance, and which she had attained to by such mean arts, shewn to be vain and futile. And now that she had humiliated herself by owning this, and thrown herself at this woman's feet, she would not extend so much as a finger-tip to help her.

“Lady Lisgard, as I hope for heaven,” cried she in anguish, “I am innocent of that with which you charge me; I am honest as yourself, or Letty. Alas, you shudder, because I dare to compare myself with your pure daughter; you think that I soil that name, too, by uttering it. What shall I say—by what shall I swear, in order to make you believe me?”

“I would to Heaven I could believe you, Rose,” returned my Lady sadly, touched in spite of herself by the girl's yearning appeal. “If you could erase this damning blot upon my son's fair name, and give me back my Walter—as I deemed him but an hour ago—I would be so grateful, girl, that you should almost think I loved you.”

“You would!” cried Rose with eagerness; then added bitterly: “But no; you mean if I could say: 'Your son has never pressed his lips to these, has never sworn to be mine, and mine alone.' But you would not thank me for merely proving that in this, although he did it, he was not to blame.”

“What! Not to blame?”

“No, madam—for even for his sake, I cannot longer bear this burden of undeserved shame. Walter Lisgard is my husband. We were married weeks ago, when I went to London in the spring.”

“Married, married!” gasped my Lady.

“Thank God for that! Far better to deceive me, boy, than this poor girl. I never thought to say: 'I am glad you are my daughter-in-law, Rose Aynton;' but I do say so now.” She took both her hands in hers, and gazed upon her downcast face, now overspread with blushes, and tinged for once with genuine tenderness. “It moves you, does it, that I am thankful to see the honour of my son preserved at some sacrifice of his prospects. How little do you know me, girl! yet I am glad to move you anyway. Rose, be a kind wife to him. I will not blame you for what has happened, although I have much cause. I must blame him rather. Who can wonder that you yielded when he said: 'Be mine.' So gentle and so loving as he can be! Now, too, I see it all. When you refused Sir Richard in the library, you were actually his brother's wife. Ah, Heaven, you must not remain here longer—not a day. I shall write to Walter”——

“Nay, madam—mother,” exclaimed Rose beseechingly, “I pray you let me write. I have broken my plighted word, and disobeyed my husband's bidding in revealing this. To please him, I had resolved to defend myself this morning as I best might, by returning thrust for thrust, without using this shield—my innocence—at all. But your bitter words—a shower of barbed darts—drove me behind it. He will be very wrath with me indeed, madam; but far worse if the news comes from you. He has much just now to make him anxious too.”

“Indeed,” replied my Lady hastily. “How is it, then, that I have heard nothing of it? But I forgot; it is you who have his secrets now. Yes, you shall write, not I. Tell him that I am sorry—sorry that he should have deceived me above all; but that I forgive him freely. He knows that, however, right well. He must not come back to Mirk until he hears from me; and you, Rose, you must join him without delay. Every member of this household must learn at once that you are Walter's wife; but not till you have gone—for Richard's sake.” My Lady's thoughts, as always, were for others; even when this great blow had well-nigh stunned her, she did not permit herself the luxury of selfish grief. She was already busy with schemes for the benefit of her erring boy; how to contrive and where to save without prejudice to Sir Richard's interests (for that must be now avoided above everything) so that a respectable allowance might be meted out to the young couple. She could not respect, and far less love the girl who had become her Walter's wife in so clandestine a manner; but still she was his wife, and therefore, in her eyes, a something precious. Then, bad as matters were, they might have been far worse; she had fully expected that they were so; and she felt in some sort grateful to accept this product of rashness and deceit in place of downright shame. Moreover, she foresaw in her own mind, for ever dwelling on such contingencies, that out of this evil a certain good might come, in case of that terrible misfortune befalling her, compared with which this present sorrow was as the prick of a pin's point.

Rose, upon her part, had certainly cause for congratulation upon the result of this interview. Although her weapon of offence had failed her—and she was genuinely convinced of the groundlessness of her late suspicions concerning Lady Lisgard—she had found in her mother-in-law a most generous adversary, and one certainly far more forgiving than she deserved. Even the worst of us, I conclude, are not bad at all times, and when my Lady, as they parted, touched her brow with her pale lips, and murmured once more: “Be a kind wife to him, Rose,” that young woman mustered an honest tear or two—of which articles, to do her justice, she did not keep, like some women, a constant supply on hand for social emergencies.

Not until she regained her own room did she begin to think that she had been unnecessarily humble, and had weakly suffered herself to be moved by the show of forgiveness and good-will which my Lady had doubtless put on for her own purposes. However, the confession had been made, and upon the whole, most satisfactorily got over, the thought of which had oppressed her of late more than she cared to own, and made her bitter against her mother-in-law, as people generally feel towards those whom they are conscious of having wronged. And now there was that letter to write to Walter, which we have seen him peruse with such disfavour at his hotel in Town, acquainting him with her premature avowal of their common secret; and many a line of dexterous excuse she wove, and many a line of affectionate pleading, only to be torn up and recomposed again and again; for there was one person in the world beside herself whom Rose loved dearly, and yet of whom she stood in deepest awe; and he whom she both loved and feared with all the strength of her energetic nature, was her husband—Walter Lisgard.