“He knows the truth!” Lady Mason had said to her friend. “I am sure of that.”
“But did he ask you?”
“Oh, no, he did not ask me that. He asked of little things that happened at the time; but from his manner I am sure he knows it all. He says—that I shall escape.”
“Did he say escape?”
“No; not that word, but it was the same thing. He spoke to Lucius, for I saw them on the lawn together.”
“You do not know what he said to him?”
“No; for Lucius would not speak to me, and I could not ask him.” And then they both were silent, for Mrs. Orme was thinking how she could bring about that matter that was so near her heart. Lady Mason was seated in a large old-fashioned armchair, in which she now passed nearly all her time. The table was by her side, but she rarely turned herself to it. She sat leaning with her elbow on her arm, supporting her face with her hand; and opposite to her, so close that she might look into her face and watch every movement of her eyes, sat Mrs. Orme—intent upon that one thing, that the woman before her should be brought to repent the evil she had done.
“And you have not spoken to Lucius?”
“No,” she answered. “No more than I have told you. What could I say to him about the man?”
“Not about Mr. Aram. It might not be necessary to speak of him. He has his work to do; and I suppose that he must do it in his own way?”
“Yes; he must do it, in his own way. Lucius would not understand.”
“Unless you told him everything, of course he could not understand.”
“That is impossible.”
“No, Lady Mason, it is not impossible. Dear Lady Mason, do not turn from me in that way. It is for your sake—because I love you, that I press you to do this. If he knew it all—”
“Could you tell your son such a tale?” said Lady Mason, turning upon her sharply, and speaking almost with an air of anger.
Mrs. Orme was for a moment silenced, for she could not at once bring herself to conceive it possible that she could be so circumstanced. But at last she answered. “Yes,” she said, “I think I could, if—.” And then she paused.
“If you had done such a deed! Ah, you do not know, for the doing of it would be impossible to you. You can never understand what was my childhood, and how my young years were passed. I never loved anything but him;—that is, till I knew you, and—and—.” But instead of finishing her sentence she pointed down towards The Cleeve. “How, then, can I tell him? Mrs. Orme, I would let them pull me to pieces, bit by bit, if in that way I could save him.”
“Not in that way,” said Mrs. Orme; “not in that way.”
But Lady Mason went on pouring forth the pent-up feelings of her bosom, not regarding the faint words of her companion. “Till he lay in my arms I had loved nothing. From my earliest years I had been taught to love money, wealth, and property; but as to myself the teachings had never come home to me. When they bade me marry the old man because he was rich, I obeyed them—not caring for his riches, but knowing that it behoved me to relieve them of the burden of my support. He was kinder to me than they had been, and I did for him the best I could. But his money and his wealth were little to me. He told me over and over again that when he died I should have the means to live, and that was enough. I would not pretend to him that I cared for the grandeur of his children who despised me. But then came my baby, and the world was all altered for me. What could I do for the only thing that I had ever called my own? Money and riches they had told me were everything.”
“But they had told you wrong,” said Mrs. Orme, as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
“They had told me falsely. I had heard nothing but falsehoods from my youth upwards,” she answered fiercely. “For myself I had not cared for these things; but why should not he have money and riches and land? His father had them to give over and above what had already made those sons and daughters so rich and proud. Why should not this other child also be his father’s heir? Was he not as well born as they? was he not as fair a child? What did Rebekah do, Mrs. Orme? Did she not do worse; and did it not all go well with her? Why should my boy be an Ishmael? Why should I be treated as the bondwoman, and see my little one perish of thirst in this world’s wilderness?”
“No Saviour had lived and died for the world in those days,” said Mrs. Orme.
“And no Saviour had lived and died for me,” said the wretched woman, almost shrieking in her despair. The lines of her face were terrible to be seen as she thus spoke, and an agony of anguish loaded her brow upon which Mrs. Orme was frightened to look. She fell on her knees before the wretched woman, and taking her by both her hands strove all she could to find some comfort for her.
“Ah, do not say so. Do not say that. Whatever may come, that misery—that worst of miseries need not oppress you. If that indeed were true!”
“It was true;—and how should it be otherwise?”
“But now—now. It need not be true now. Lady Mason, for your soul’s sake say that it is
