"I am glad she is, I want her to know what you are."
"I do know," faltered Lesbia, weakly, "and oh!"--she covered her face to sink in a passion of tears on the sofa--"it is shameful: shameful."
Mrs. Walker looked at Hale, still defiant and hard-faced. "I would have spared you this for the girl's sake," she breathed, "but she caught you red-handed, so there is nothing to conceal." With a stern look at him, she glided to the sofa and took the shrinking, fragile form of the unhappy girl in her strong arms: "Lesbia, my love," she said tenderly, and the change in her voice was extraordinary, "I have come to stand by you. That man is not fit to have charge of you. Come with me, to-night, to Medmenham."
"Oh no--no--George----"
"George knows all that you know, that I know. He was present when Lady Charvington came to tell us of what had taken place."
"And George despises me," wept Lesbia, burying her face in Mrs. Walker's bosom.
"Don't be ridiculous, child, don't be foolish. How can he despise you when you are innocent and he loves you?"
"Loves me--loves me," Lesbia looked up startled; "but he refused to renew our engagement although I abased myself to the dust to regain him."
"I think George will be able to explain why he acted in that way," she whispered. "In a few minutes you will meet George under the chestnut tree where he proposed to you. It's an idea of his that he should explain himself there and there renew the engagement. We both arranged to come here to-night and were to drive over. But at the last moment George took to his boat and is now rowing down the river to meet you under the trysting-tree. I drove over."
"Oh!" Lesbia sat up, smiles breaking through her tears. This was a gleam of sunshine indeed. "George is coming back."