Lady Betty gasped. "Oh!" she said. "I don't understand, I am afraid. Doesn't he"--in an awestruck tone--"doesn't he love you, then?"
"He?" Sophia cried bitterly. "Oh yes, I suppose he does. He pities me at any rate. It's I----"
"You don't love him?"
Sophia shook her head.
The younger girl shivered. "That must be--horrible," she whispered.
Her tone was so grave that Sophia raised her head, and smiled drearily through her tears. "You don't understand yet," she said. "It's only a form, our marriage. He offered to marry me to save me from scandal. And I agreed. But since he gave me the jewels that were his mother's, I--I am frightened, child. I know now that I have done wrong. I should not have let him persuade me."
"Why did you?" Lady Betty asked softly.
Sophia told her, with all the circumstances of Hawkesworth's villainy, Tom's infatuation, her own dilemma, Sir Hervey's offer, and the terms of it.
After a brief silence, "It was generous," Lady Betty said, her eyes shining. "I think I should--I think I could love him, my Lady Coke. And since that, you have only seen him one day?"
"That is all."