"Upon my word, mamma, I could not find a shadow of reason in any thing he said."
"You evade my questions, Helen. I insist upon knowing what it is that Sir Gilbert lays to my charge.—Helen!—do you refuse to answer me?"
"Oh no, mamma!—but you cannot think how painful it would be for me to repeat it!"
"I cannot help it, Helen: you have brought this pain on yourself by your very unadvised visit of this morning. But since you have gone to the house of one who has declared himself my enemy, you must let me know exactly what it is he has chosen to accuse me of; unless you mean that I should imagine you wish to shield him from my resentment because you think him right."
"Oh, my mother!" cried Helen; "what a word is that!"
"Well, then, do not trifle with me any longer, but repeat at once all that you heard him say."
Thus urged, poor Helen stated Sir Gilbert's very unjust suspicions respecting the influence used to induce Mr. Mowbray to make the will he had left. It was in vain she endeavoured to modify and soften the accusation,—the resentment and indignation of Mrs. Mowbray were unbounded; and Helen had the deep mortification of perceiving that the only result of her enterprise was to have rendered the breach she so greatly wished to repair a hundred times wider than before.
"And this man, with these base and vile suspicions, is the person your father has left as joint executor with me!—What a situation does this place me in! Did he make any allusion to this, Helen?—did he say any thing of the necessary business that we have, most unfortunately, to transact together?"
"No, mamma, he did not."
A long silence followed this question and answer. Mrs. Mowbray appeared to suffer greatly, and in fact she did so. Nothing could be farther from the truth than the idea Sir Gilbert Harrington had conceived, and its injustice revolted and irritated her to a degree that she never before experienced against any human being. That Helen should have listened to such an accusation, pained her extremely; and a feeling in some degree allied to displeasure against her mingled with the disagreeable meditations in which she was plunged.