“That such accursed vileness should proceed from me! Now will the tongued world say—See the vile boy of Mary Glendinning!—Deceitful! thick with guilt, where I thought it was all guilelessness and gentlest docility to me. It has not happened! It is not day! Were this thing so, I should go mad, and be shut up, and not walk here where every door is open to me.—My own only son married to an unknown—thing! My own only son, false to his holiest plighted public vow—and the wide world knowing to it! He bears my name—Glendinning. I will disown it; were it like this dress, I would tear my name off from me, and burn it till it shriveled to a crisp!—Pierre! Pierre! come back, come back, and swear it is not so! It can not be! Wait: I will ring the bell, and see if it be so.”
She rung the bell with violence, and soon heard a responsive knock.
“Come in!—Nay, falter not;” (throwing a shawl over her) “come in. Stand there and tell me if thou darest, that my son was in this house this morning and met me on the stairs. Darest thou say that?”
Dates looked confounded at her most unwonted aspect.
“Say it! find thy tongue! Or I will root mine out and fling it at thee! Say it!”
“My dear mistress!”
“I am not thy mistress! but thou my master; for, if thou sayest it, thou commandest me to madness.—Oh, vile boy!—Begone from me!”
She locked the door upon him, and swiftly and distractedly walked her chamber. She paused, and tossing down the curtains, shut out the sun from the two windows.
Another, but an unsummoned knock, was at the door. She opened it.
“My mistress, his Reverence is below. I would not call you, but he insisted.”