"Have you heard anything against him, that you are concealing?"
Mrs. Darling lifted her hand to her face, partially hiding it. She did not answer the question.
"Charlotte, you know how I love you. Well, I would almost rather see you die, than married to George St. John. No mother ever schemed to get her daughter a husband, as I schemed three years ago to keep you from one, when my suspicions were aroused that you were in danger of loving George St. John."
"The danger had ripened," said Charlotte, in low tones. "I did love him."
"My poor girl! And his love, though I did not know it then, was given to Caroline Carleton----"
"Don't say it!" interrupted Charlotte: and for the second time during their interview Mrs. Darling quailed, the tone was so wild, so full of pain. "I do not wish to be spoken to of his first wife," she added calmly, after a pause.
"You will not, surely, be his second, Charlotte! Charlotte, my Charlotte! You will not break my heart!"
"You will break mine, if you forbid me to marry Mr. St. John," was the whispered answer. "But indeed, mamma, I think we are talking nonsense," broke off Charlotte. "I am no longer a child. I am nearly nine-and-twenty; and that's rather too old to be told I may not marry, when there's no real cause why I should not do so."
"No real cause! What have I been saying, Charlotte?"
"I think there is none. I think what you are saying must be a chimera."