"But, if I have done so, it is fit that her father should know it, and redress her injuries. Let me call him."
He attempted to pass her, but she held him back, and burst into tears.
"Not for worlds," she said; "he will never forget it."
"Then you retract what you said," he replied, sternly.
"Yes, yes, I do," she cried.
And Hargrave walked back to where he had before been standing, and instantly recovered his good humour. Mrs. Villars soon followed her daughters, who had retreated, from different reasons, before; while he, late as it was, went down to the study, where he found Mr. Villars, and fully acquainted him with the facts and feelings which had led to this unlooked-for change in Mabel's life—over which he most heartily rejoiced.
Meanwhile, burning with ungovernable passion, Caroline pursued Mabel to the garret chamber, and, after insisting on her opening the door, attacked her with such rapid accusations of cunning, meanness, and duplicity, and in language so loud and inflamed, that Mabel felt powerless to answer her. It seemed as if all the malice of the last few months had been concentrated in that moment, when she stood at her open door, loading her with invectives, almost as inappropriate as they were undeserved. Where she would have stopped the mad passion which overcame her, it is difficult to say, but the stealthy opening of the doors of the servants' rooms, which were close by, and the suppressed tittering and whispering which issued from them, recalled her to something like a sense of what she was doing, and, pulling the door to with violence, that sent an echo down all the long stair case, she descended, to revenge herself further on her mother. But Mrs. Villars had taken the precaution of entrenching herself behind a carefully fastened door, and though she could not shut her ears to the distant rumbling of the storm, she escaped its first fury.
Poor Mabel, spite of all her happiness, cried herself to sleep, that night.