Mrs. Carteret's feelings were concentrated on Molly's conduct towards herself, but Molly's consciousness was filled with the greatness of the blow that had just fallen. It seemed to her that she had only now for the first time lost her mother—her only ideal, the object of all her better thoughts. That her enemy was justified was, indeed, just then of little importance. She turned a dazed face towards her aunt:
"I ought to beg your pardon: I am sorry."
"Oh, pray don't take the trouble."
Mrs. Carteret got out of the chair with emphatic dignity, and held out some papers.
"You had better read these. I will speak to you about them afterwards."
She left the room absolutely satisfied with her own conduct. But, coming to a pause in the drawing-room, she remembered that she had made one mistake.
"How stupid of me to have left Jane Dawning's letter among those papers."
But she did not go back to fetch the letter from her cousin Lady Dawning; and she did not own to herself that that apparent negligence was her real revenge. Yet from that moment her feelings of self-satisfaction were uncomfortably disturbed.
Meanwhile, Molly was kneeling by the window in the study in floods of tears. Everything in her mind had lost its balance; and baffled, disheartened, and ashamed, she wept tears that brought no softness. She did not know it, but while to herself it seemed as if she were absorbed in weeping over her disillusionment, she was in fact deciding that, as her ideal had failed her, she would in future live only for herself, and get everything out of life that she could for her own satisfaction.
No one in the world cared for her, but she would not be defeated or crushed or forlorn. With an effort she sprang to her feet with one agile movement, and pushed her heavy hair back from her forehead with her long, thin fingers.