“Why did you seek me out?” she presently broke forth. “I am not worth it. I have brought enough disgrace upon your name.”
“And upon your husband’s and upon your children’s,” he rejoined, in the most severe manner, for it was not in the nature of the Earl of Mount Severn to gloss over guilt. “Nevertheless it is incumbent upon me, as your nearest blood relative, to see after you, now that you are alone again, and to take care, as far as I can, that you do not lapse lower.”
He might have spared her that stab. But she scarcely understood him. She looked at him, wondering whether she did understand.
“You have not a shilling in the world,” he resumed. “How do you propose to live?”
“I have some money yet. When—”
“His money?” sharply and haughtily interposed the earl.
“No,” she indignantly replied. “I am selling my trinkets. Before they are all gone, I shall look out to get a living in some way; by teaching, probably.”
“Trinkets!” repeated Lord Mount Severn. “Mr. Carlyle told me that you carried nothing away with you from East Lynne.”
“Nothing that he had given me. These were mine before I married. You have seen Mr. Carlyle, then?” she faltered.
“Seen him?” echoed the indignant earl. “When such a blow was dealt him by a member of my family, could I do less than hasten to East Lynne to tender my sympathies? I went with another subject too—to discover what could have been the moving springs of your conduct; for I protest, when the black tidings reached me, I believed that you must have gone mad. You were one of the last whom I should have feared to trust. But I learned nothing, and Carlyle was as ignorant as I. How could you strike him such a blow?”