"But if she--if she were brought to see what she has done in its true light?" the duchess asked weakly; her motherly instinct still impelling her to fight the young thing's battle.
"Not even then," Mrs. Northey replied with Roman firmness. "Under no circumstances, no circumstances whatever, could Mr. Northey and I countenance conduct such as hers."
"You are sure that there's--there's no mistake, my dear?"
"Not a shadow of a mistake!" madam answered with acrimony. "We have traced her to the man's lodging. She reached it after dark, and under--under the most disgraceful circumstances."
Mrs. Northey referred to the arrest by bailiffs, the news of which had reached Arlington Street through Lane the mercer. But the duchess took her to mean something quite different; and her Grace was shocked.
"Dear, dear," she said in a tone of horror; and looking instinctively at her daughter, she wished that Lady Betty had not seen so much of the girl, wished still more fervently that she had not mixed herself up with her flight. "I am infinitely sorry to hear it," she said. "Infinitely sorry! I confess I did not think her that kind of girl. My dear, you have indeed my sympathy."
Mrs. Northey, though she knew quite well what the duchess was thinking, shook her head as if she could add much more, but would not; and the duchess, her apologies made, rose to take leave; resolved to give her daughter such a wigging by the way as that young lady had never experienced. But while they stood in the act of making their adieux, Mr. Northey entered; and his dolorous head shaking, which would have done credit to a father's funeral, detained her so long, that she was still where he found her, when an exclamation from Lady Betty, who had profited by her mother's engrossment to look out of the window, startled the party.
"Oh, la, ma'am, here she is!" the girl cried. "I vow and declare she is!"
"Betty!" her Grace cried sharply. "Remember yourself. What do you mean? Come, we must be going."
"But, ma'am, she's at the door," Lady Betty replied with a giggle. And turning and thrusting her muff into her mouth--as one well understanding the crisis--she looked over it at the party, her eyes bright with mischief.