“Harry, tell me what you mean,” cried I.
Harry looked at me a little indignantly; he thought I knew more than he did, and was trifling with him. “Milly, who is that fellow Luigi?” he said at last.
“I make dreadful guesses,” said I, “but I cannot tell. Aunt Milly knows nothing about him. The only idea she can form is that he may be her father’s son.”
Harry gave a long, half amazed, incredulous whistle, and turned away. He could scarcely believe me. Then I told him all I had heard, and something of what I had guessed. We did not converse plainly about this guess, which he had evidently jumped at as well as myself. A secret held with such dreadful tenacity was not a thing to be lightly discussed; but we both felt the same on the subject, only Harry’s mind took a more charitable view of it than I did. They say we are always harder on guilty women than men are; perhaps it is natural. I felt an abhorrence rise within me which I could neither overcome nor disguise at the idea of a woman, and especially a woman in such a position as Miss Mortimer, having lived a pretended life of honour and innocence all these years, with that guilt in her mind which nobody knew but she; and now of her sacrificing and disowning nature to keep up that dreadful sham. I can understand people meeting death rather than disgrace; that is, I mean I could understand how one would rather hear that those whom one loves should die than disgrace themselves; but I don’t understand an insane struggle against the disgrace which one has deserved. That is not a noble struggle, so far as I can see; the only way of existing through such dreadful circumstances would be by enduring it; and all the same whether it was a woman or a man. I do think it is a shame to speak as some people speak on this subject, as if the disgrace were all; as if all the harm was not done when the wrong was done, whether disgrace came or no!
“I’ll tell you what, Milly,” said Harry, “I must say I think it’s very hard the poor old lady should lose her good name for something that happened an age ago. No doubt, by what we saw to-day, she must have set her poor old heart upon resisting and denying it, as foolish people always try to do. Now, you know, that’s evidently of no use. Of course a mere statement of any such claim having been made, is enough to finish Miss Mortimer, with all the gossips of the county, whether it was proved or not. Now I shan’t be here for long, and as they seem disposed to be so very kind to you——”
“Don’t, Harry!”
“But I must,” said he. “It will be no end of consolation to me to think of you in these pretty rooms which Miss Milly has already prepared for you. If I can do them a good turn before I go, I will, you may depend upon it. As soon as we return to Chester I’ll see Luigi; and if it can be got out of him what he wants, I shall certainly make an effort to have him satisfied, and Miss Mortimer left unmolested. It would not do if sins of thirty years standing were to be brought against people in this way. Why, anybody might be thrown into sudden shame on such a principle; and you women, you know, are so vindictive and all that——”
“Oh, yes! I know,” said I, “and will always be vindictive all the same. Imagine this woman standing side by side with Aunt Milly, and considered as spotless as she; imagine such a long cruel abominable sin, and no retribution overtaking it! Oh, you may be pitiful if you like, but it disgusts me.”
Harry laughed. “I should be surprised if it did not disgust you, Milly darling,” he said, “but poetic justice is exploded now-a-days. I don’t suppose Luigi can be very anxious for her personal affection, considering how she seems to have behaved; and, indeed, to be sure he would be fully more disgraced than she. How many days are we to be here? I shall see him whenever we return to Chester.”
“Three days longer,” said I, with a sigh. “Somehow this little visit to the Park had come to look like a little barrier between me and what was coming. Presently we should go back to Chester, and then——”