I am obliged to go back a few days, that the reader may be made aware of the causes which detained Edgar, and of the business which had occupied his mind, mingled with all the frivolities of the Entertainment, during his absence. Annoyance, just alloyed with a forlorn kind of amusement, was his strongest sentiment, when he found himself appointed by his patron to be a kind of father-confessor to Miss Lockwood, to ascertain her story, and take upon himself her defence, if defence was possible. Why should he be selected for such a delicate office? he asked; and when he found himself seated opposite to the young lady from the cloak and shawl department in Mr. Tottenham’s room, his sense of the incongruity of his position became more and more embarrassing. Miss Lockwood’s face was not of a common kind. The features were all fine, even refined, had the mind been conformable; but as the mind was not of a high order, the fine face took an air of impertinence, of self-opinion, and utter indifference to the ideas or feelings of others, which no coarse features could have expressed so well; the elevation of her head was a toss, the curl of her short upper lip a sneer. She placed herself on a chair in front of Mr. Tottenham’s writing-table, at which Edgar sat, and turned her profile towards him, and tucked up her feet on a foot-stool. She had a book in her hand, which she used sometimes as a fan, sometimes to shield her face from the fire, or Edgar’s eyes, when she found them embarrassing. But it was he who was embarrassed, not Miss Lockwood. It cost him a good deal of trouble to begin his interrogatory.
“You must remember,” he said, “that I have not thrust myself into this business, but that it is by your own desire—though I am entirely at a loss to know why.”
“Of course you are,” said Miss Lockwood. “It is one of the things that no man can be expected to understand—till he knows. It’s because we’ve got an object in common, sir, you and me——”
“An object in common?”
“Yes; perhaps you’re a better Christian than I am, or perhaps you pretend to be; but knowing what you’ve been, and how you’ve fallen to what you are, I don’t think it’s in human nature that you shouldn’t feel the same as me.”
“What I’ve been, and how I’ve fallen to what I am!” said Edgar, smiling at the expression with whimsical amazement and vexation. “What is the object in life which you suppose me to share?”
“To spite the Ardens!” cried the young lady from the mantle department, with sudden vigour and animation. Her eyes flashed, she clasped her hands together, and laughed and coughed—the laughter hard and mirthless, the cough harder still, and painful to hear. “Don’t you remember what I said to you? All my trouble, all that has ever gone against me in the world, and the base stories they’re telling you now—all came along of the Ardens; and now Providence has thrown you in my way, that has as much reason to hate them. I can’t set myself right without setting them wrong—and revenge is sweet. Arthur Arden shall rue the day he ever set eyes on you or me!”
“Wait a little,” said Edgar, bewildered. “In the first place, I don’t hate the Ardens, and I don’t want to injure them, and I hope, when we talk it over, you may change your mind. What has Arthur Arden done to you?”
“That’s my story,” said Miss Lockwood, and then she made a short pause. “Do you know the things that are said about me?” she asked. “They say in the house that I have had a baby. That’s quite true. I would not deny it when I was asked; I didn’t choose to tell a lie. They believed me fast enough when what I said was to my own disadvantage; but when I told the truth in another way, because it was to my advantage, they say—Prove it. I can’t prove it without ruining other folks, or I’d have done it before now; but I was happy enough as I was, and I didn’t care to ruin others. Now, however, they’ve forced me to it, and thrown you in my way.”
“For heaven’s sake,” cried Edgar, “don’t mix me up with your scheme of vengeance! What have I to do with it?” He was alarmed by the calm white vehemence with which she spoke.