CHAPTER XVI.
A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT.
There was an awful pause. Such at least it seemed to poor Mrs Mildmay, who, now that she was not called upon to act for herself, and felt under the protection of her husband, dared to tremble! Then came Lady Myrtle's reply, short, cold, and decisive.
'I deny it,' she said.
Colonel Mildmay did not speak.
The old lady glanced at him. His eyes were fixed on the table beside which he was seated; he tapped it lightly with a paper-cutter which he held in his hand. And after a moment's waiting she spoke again.
'I know what you refer to,' she said. 'It would be nonsense to pretend I do not. And I can—even—understand how to you it may seem that the claim you allude to exists. But, if you have talked together about these—these people, as no doubt you have done, has not Eugenia told you what I have told her, that on a certain day my father and I shook ourselves free from the bonds which had become shackles of shame; that from that time Bernard Harper and all belonging to him ceased to be more to us than any stranger we might brush against in the street?'
Colonel Mildmay raised his head and looked at her quietly.
'It could not be done; the bonds do exist and must exist,' he said. 'The great thing is that, however cruelly they may have torn and wounded you in the past, they may now be to you a cause of happiness and satisfaction.'
But Lady Myrtle shook her head.