"In love!" echoed the housekeeper contemptuously. "She was never in love with anyone but herself."
"Are you not rather hard on her, Mrs. Tice?" said Dora, reflecting that after all this despised woman was her mother, and entitled to some consideration.
"Far from it, my dear young lady," was the emphatic rejoinder of Mrs. Tice; "indeed, out of pity for your position and feelings, I am speaking as well as I can of her. But what can you think of a woman who marries three husbands, and leaves her child to be brought up far away from her? In all these twenty years, Miss Carew," added the old dame, nodding, "I dare swear your mother has not given you a single thought."
"She was willing enough to recognise me," said the girl, attempting a defence of the indefensible.
"She made the best of a bad job, you mean," retorted Mrs. Tice. "If you had not produced that brooch, and showed Lady Burville plainly that she was in your power, she would never have acknowledged the relationship. She knew you could not denounce your own mother, and that is why she spoke up."
"She might wish to make amends for her conduct."
Mrs. Tice shook her head.
"Laura Carew, Laura Dargill, Laura Burville, whatever you like to call her," she said, "is not the kind of woman to regret her conduct in any way. No, no; don't you deceive yourself. Lady Burville was in a trap, and she used her knowledge of your birth to get out of it."
"But all this is beside my question," said Dora, wearied of this constant blame; "I asked you if my mother was in love with Mr. Dargill?"
"No, she was not. What woman could love that miserable little creature? You saw enough of him, Miss Carew, and I am sure you neither loved nor respected him."