But Tom would hear no more. "Wait?" he cried rudely. "You're a nice person to give that advice! You were for waiting, of course, and doing what you were told. And what life she has led? I tell you what it is, miss; I kept my mouth shut last night, but I might have said a good deal! Who got us into the trouble? What were you doing in his room? The less you say and the quieter you keep, the better for all, I think! A man's one thing but a girl's another, and she should do what she's bid and take care of herself, and not run the risk of shaming her family!"
"Oh, Tom!"
"Oh, ifs every word true!" the lad answered cruelly. "And less than you deserve, ma'am! Wait till sister sees you, and you'll hear more. Now, cry, cry, that's like a girl!" he continued contemptuously. "All the same a little plain truth will do you good, miss, and teach you not to meddle. But I suppose women will scratch women as long as the world lasts!"
"Oh, Tom, it is not that!" Sophia cried between her sobs. "I've behaved badly, if you please. As badly as you please! But take me for a warning. I thought--I thought him all you think her!"
"Oh, d----n!" Tom cried, and flung away in a rage, went into the bedroom and slammed the door. Sophia heard him turn the key, and a minute later, when she had a little recovered herself, she heard him moving to and fro in the room. He was dressing. He had not, then, changed his mind.
She waited awhile, trying to believe that her words might still produce some effect. But he made no sign, he did not emerge. Presently she caught the rustle of his garments as he changed his clothes; and in a fever of anxiety she began to pace the room. Nature has provided no cure for trouble more wholesome or more powerful than a generous interest in another's fate. Gone was the apathy, gone were the dulness of soul and the greyness of outlook with which Sophia had risen from her bed. Convinced of the villainy of the man who had nearly snared her, she foresaw nothing but ruin in an alliance between her brother and a person who was connected, ever so remotely, with him. Nor did the case rest on this only; or on Tom's youth; or on the secrecy of the marriage. Oriana was the name she had spelt in the book, the name of one of the women suggested in Hawkesworth's sordid calculations. No wonder Sophia shrank from thinking what manner of woman she was, or what her qualifications for a part in the play. It was enough that she knew Hawkesworth, and was known by him.
The cruel lesson which she had learned in her own person, the glimpse she had had of the abyss into which her levity had all but cast her, even the gratitude in which she held the brother who had protected her, rendered her feelings trebly poignant now; her view of the case trebly serious. To see the one relation she loved falling into the pit which she had escaped, and to be unable to save him; to know him committed to this fatal step, and to foresee that his whole life would be blasted by it, these prospects awoke no less pity in her breast, because her eyes were open to-day to her madness of yesterday. Something, something must be done for him; something, but what?
Often through the gloom of reflections, alien from them, shoot strange flashes of memory. "Oriana? Oriana Clark?" Sophia muttered, and she stood still, remembered. Oriana Clark! Surely that was the name of the woman in whose stead she had been arrested, the woman whose name the bailiff had read from the writ in Lane's shop. Sophia had only heard the name once, and the press of after events and crowding emotions had driven it for the time into a side cell of the brain, whence it now as suddenly emerged. Her eyes sparkled with hope. Here, at last, was a fact, here was something on which she could go. She stepped to Tom's door, and rapped sharply on it.
"Well?" he called sourly. "What is it?"
"Please, come out!" she cried eagerly. "I have something to tell you. I have, indeed!"