"Dear papa, dear mamma, it was naughty and wicked to desert them so," she said; "but they were too hard upon Cyril and me. I loved him so dearly. I could not bear it. But I loved them too; and although Cyril makes me so happy, my heart aches for the dear ones at home."
"And you will write to them? The plunge has to be made some time. As well now as ever," urged the maid.
"No, not now. What do you take me for, Clarice? Do you think I would betray sweet little Laurel, to whom I owe all my happiness?" cried Beatrix, indignantly.
"I beg your pardon for naming it. Of course, you know best, Mrs. Wentworth," replied discreet Clarice, dropping the subject.
They had discussed the matter several times, each retaining her own opinion of the matter on the well-known principle that
"A woman convinced against her will
Is of the same opinion still."
Beatrix, like most adoring young wives, who confide all they know to their husbands, laid her grievance before Cyril.
The handsome, happy young Benedick humbly begged his wife's pardon for coinciding with Clarice's views rather than hers, but he could not be shaken from his first opinion that the romance of the conspiracy would culminate in the marriage of St. Leon Le Roy and Laurel Vane.
"It would be a delightful ending," he said, laughing at her horrified face.
"But I tell you it would not," she said, emphatically. "It would be just too dreadful for anything, and I will not believe it of sweet little Laurel Vane!"