The old lady started a little as Jacinth spoke the names 'Camilla and Bessie Harper.' But then she answered quietly: 'It was right of you to tell me, dear,' she said. 'And you need not fear its annoying me. It is strange that they should have chosen Basse, but really it does not matter to us in the least. I am very glad the father is so much better. Now let us talk of something else, dear.'

Now came the hard bit of Jacinth's task.

'Dear Lady Myrtle, that isn't all; it's only the first part of what I have to say,' she began tremulously. 'I want to tell you everything, more even than I told mamma, for till to-day I don't think I saw it quite so plainly. I have not been as good and true as you have thought me; nothing like Frances, or mamma, of course. And I feel now that you must know the worst of me. I shall never be happy till you do, even though it is horrible to own how mean I have been.'

Lady Myrtle sat silent, too bewildered at first to speak. What had come to Jacinth, so quiet and self-controlled as she usually was? But she held the girl's hand and said gently, 'Tell me anything that is on your mind, dear child, though I think—I cannot help thinking—that you are exaggerating whatever it is that you think you have done wrong.'

Then out it all came: the confession that many would hardly have understood—would have called morbid and fanciful, perhaps. But Lady Myrtle's perceptions were keen, her moral ideal very high, her sympathy great; and she did not make the mistake of crushing back the girl's confidence by making light of the feelings and even actions which Jacinth's own conscience told her had been wrong. One thing only she could not resist suggesting as a touch of comfort.

'I think, latterly at any rate, dear, you were influenced by the fear of troubling me. You must allow that.'

'Well, yes,' Jacinth agreed. 'But even then I should not have let even that make me uncandid and—and—almost plotting against them.'

'No, no, dear; don't say such things of yourself. And now you may put it quite out of your mind for ever. You have been only too severe on yourself. But try to understand one thing, dear; no child could be to me what you are. Even—even if these young people had been in happy relations with me, as of course, but for past miseries, might have been the case, they would not have been Jacinth.'

'No; I know it is for grandmother's sake you care for me so much more than I deserve,' said the girl, as she wiped away her tears, 'and even in that way I should not have been jealous. I did not know it was jealousy. I have never realised before that I could be jealous. But I cannot put it quite off my mind till you let me feel I have done something to make up. Lady Myrtle, dear Lady Myrtle, may I ask them to come to see you? I know they are longing to thank you. And oh, it would make me so happy!'

'I will think it over, my dear,' was all Lady Myrtle would commit herself to. But even that was something.