"You knew, and you let it go on!" The revelation had taken all the sting out of her. She was more interested than offended.
"Didn't I tell you that I trusted Harry? I knew what he was, if you didn't. I should have known if he had taken a wrong turning in life, and then I should have tried to influence him. When I did know what had happened I knew well enough that he hadn't taken a wrong turning, by the way he bore himself. You couldn't see that. You can't even see it now."
Mrs. Brent's surprise was still strong enough to swamp her resentment at wounding speeches. "Why didn't you do anything afterwards, when he went away?" she asked. "You did do something. You got Sidney Pawle down here. You hoped that she and Harry would fall in love with one another. I know that. You thought they had. I know that too. I think you're making yourself out cleverer than you are, though I don't deny you were clever, if you found out what nobody else did."
"It matters very little to me," said Lady Brent, "what you deny or what you accept. You've made yourself nothing and you are nothing. I believe that this girl Harry loves is worthy of him, or he wouldn't have gone on loving her. But they were both very young. It might have died out of itself. I didn't know whether it had or not. I might have found out, but I wouldn't take any steps to do that. And even if the girl is worthy of him, there are objections otherwise. You have named them yourself. There are no such objections to Sidney Pawle. I should have been glad if Harry's first attachment had worn itself out and he could have married her. Yes, I did hope that they might have fallen in love with one another. You are right there. You are quite wrong in saying that I thought they had. You may have thought so, who knew so little of Harry. I knew very soon that there was something in the way."
Mrs. Brent was beaten. Even resentment no longer moved her. She wanted to ward off further blows, and to propitiate. "When you go up to London, shall you tell Harry that we are ready to recognize his engagement to this Viola Bastian?" she asked.
Lady Brent seemed to take breath. She had given her explanation as to one with whom she might have been talking on equal terms. But there was still punishment to be dealt out, the smouldering fire of years of dislike and contempt, which had been banked up so as only now and then to show a flicker, but now could be allowed to burst into scorching flame.
"Why should I tell you what I mean to do?" she said, with fierce scorn. "Stay where you are till I've put right what you hadn't the sense or the heart to do; and don't meddle. Then you can go where you like and do what you like; only not here. For years I've had to live with you, and bear with your ignorance and vanity and folly, and keep you from going back on what you'd set your hand to of your own free will. I've defended you from your silly selfish self, so that your own son shouldn't see what a thing of naught you were. You've had your chance up to the last moment. Directly it depends upon yourself you can only strike the son you say you love in his tenderest place, and then come snivelling to me to mend the damage you've done. You want me to put myself on your side, and treat him as you did. Be very sure that I shall treat him in no way as you have done. I've stood aside all these years, so as not to take what was owing to you, as I might well have done if I'd lifted a little finger. Now I'll take whatever I've earned. Mend your own broken pieces if you can. I'll do nothing to help you. Live your own useless selfish life. You shall have money for it. But live it away from here. You told me once, in one of your foolish discontented fits, that this house was like a prison to you. You're free of your prison. Go; and do what you like with your liberty."
She rose suddenly, and went out. Mrs. Brent sat for a time where she was, with a white frightened face. Then she went out of the room too, and out of the house, weeping silently. She would not stay there another minute. She would not run the risk of meeting that terrible woman again, who had treated her so wickedly. She would never see her again, and as for taking money from her—she would work her fingers to the bone before she would touch a penny. She went down to the Vicarage, where she poured out her outraged feelings to Mrs. Grant, and gained some consolation from her. A strong cup of tea also did much to comfort her, and after that she went to bed with a headache. Exhausted by the emotions of the day she slept throughout the night, which Lady Brent spent sitting upright in a railway carriage, her endless thoughts running to the steady beat of the train.
Wilbraham met her in London very early in the morning and took her to her hotel. "Harry went off yesterday," he told her. "I sent your telegram on to him, but there has been no answer yet. There may be one to my rooms this morning. But it doesn't very much matter, does it, as long as he knows that you are going to see Viola?"
"If he should be killed!" she said. It was the thought that the iron wheels had dinned into her brain all through the night. She could not help giving it utterance; but she said immediately, "Oh, we mustn't think of that. You have arranged that I am to see the girl this afternoon?"