‘Don’t speak of her to me,’ said Lady William. ‘I was a fool to go near her, to see her again. Knew! ah, indeed she knew—indeed she knew! She was my patroness, my kind friend. My father thought it such a fine thing for me to be at the Hall. Oh, James, why should a girl be allowed to live when she has no mother? She ought to be put away in her mother’s coffin, and not enter helpless into the world.’
‘In my opinion fathers are some good,’ said the Rector, with severity.
And then a few hot tears fell from his sister’s eyes. ‘Poor papa!’ she said. Mr. Plowden added nothing to this phrase. They remained silent, both thinking of the parent who had not indeed been very wise, but always kind. After a while Lady William resumed: ‘He approved: if he had not approved—I should never—— But what could I do against my father? And Miss Mansfield told me I should be ungrateful to the friend who had made such a match for me.’
‘Who was Miss Mansfield, Emily?’
‘The lady I told you of—a cousin of Mrs. Swinford’s, who was with me that day.’
‘And is she dead, too?’
‘I think not. No; Leo Swinford said something of her the other day—that she had been here.’
‘Then she must be found, Emily.’
Lady William gave him a startled look. ‘Do you think, then, James, after all, it is necessary to go into all that again—to rake up everything? Oh! when I think of it—the hurry, the strangers, the unknown place, which looked as if there was shame in it——’
‘My dear Emily, it is only the hurry and the unknown place that make it important. As soon as you know where to write to find the marriage in the register it does not matter, you can let it rest. But now that I know—even if Mrs. Swinford had never said a word—I shall not rest till I find it out.’