“What young woman?” His voice was angry, almost threatening. He came a step nearer, and stood over her with a cloud upon his face. “What young woman is it? whom do you mean?”
“It is a poor thing to make a mystery of it when it has gone so far. I confess my mistake, and why should you conceal your intentions on your side? This can only have the effect of making everything worse. I was made to see her against my will, and to hear from her own lips——”
“Mother!” cried Paul, violently, stopping her. Then he said, endeavouring again to calm himself, “I have heard often that it is only women who can be thoroughly cruel to other women.”
“Then you have heard what is false, Paul, what is entirely and cruelly false; though you boys toss about such accusations at your pleasure, insulting the women who bear with you, and suffer for you. I tell you because I feel it would have been wiser had I taken no part in the matter; had I kept away; said nothing, and done nothing.”
“And I tell you—” cried Paul, in vehement indignation; then he stopped short and cried out with an anxious voice, “Mother, what is it you have done?”
“Everything that is unwise,” she said. “I have been rebuffed by your friend. I will tell you the truth, Paul. When he said that he had no wish to have you as a fellow emigrant, I, in my folly, asked, Was it his daughter? And she was not so reticent as you are. She owned that it was so. She was more frank than you are; and to do him justice I will allow that her father looked as much surprised as I.”
“She owned it was so!” Paul’s face became ghastly in the morning light. Then after a minute’s blank silence, he said, with a harsh laugh, “Surprised? Yes, her father might be surprised; but why you? You seem to have been the only person who knew all about it, who had got it all cut and dry to be produced at a moment’s notice. Oh, mother!” he cried, bitterly, “your morning’s work will cost me dear—it will cost me dear!”
Lady Markham stood with bowed head to receive her son’s reproaches. “I was wrong,” she said; “I was wrong. Oh, Paul, my dearest boy, come home with me; let us talk it all over; let us think of everything! If you knew how hard it is for me to oppose you! and all the more when your heart is engaged. Am I one to set myself against love?” She blushed as she looked at him with a woman’s reverence for the centre of all affections, and a mother’s shamefacedness in opening such a subject with her son. “But, Paul, there are so many things—oh, so many things to think of! and you are so young—and——”
“Mother, stop!” he said, “your arguments have nothing to do with me; they are wrong altogether. If my life is spoiled, it will be your doing; not mine, but yours—not mine, but yours.”
Lady Markham lifted her head with the surprise and something of the indignation of a person unjustly accused. “This is going too far,” she said. “I have been wrong, but to throw the total blame upon me is unreasonable. In this, as in other things, nobody could harm you; nobody could make your position worse, if you had not risked and lost it yourself.”