“So it is better,” said the countess. “Don’t go into heroics, William. You are quite old enough to know that she had brought misery upon herself, and disgrace upon all connected with her. No one could ever have taken notice of her again.”
“I would,” said the boy, stoutly.
Lady Mount Severn smiled derisively.
“I would. I never liked anybody in the world half so much as I liked Isabel.”
“That’s past and gone. You would not have continued to like her, after the disgrace she wrought.”
“Somebody else wrought more of the disgrace than she did; and, had I been a man, I would have shot him dead,” flashed the viscount.
“You don’t know anything about it.”
“Don’t I!” returned he, not over dutifully. But Lady Mount Severn had not brought him up to be dutiful.
“May I read the letter, mamma?” he demanded, after a pause.
“If you can read it,” she replied, tossing it to him. “It is written in the strangest style; syllables divided, and the words running one into the other. She wrote it herself when she was dying.”