Yet she felt it was using her cousin unkindly to keep her in ignorance of what she was certain would give her pleasure to hear; and, summoning her resolution, she at length disclosed to her all that had taken place. Her own embarrassment was too great to allow her to remark Lady Emily's changing colour, as she listened to her communication; and after it was ended she remained silent for some minutes, evidently struggling with her emotions.
At length she exclaimed indignantly—"And so it seems Colonel Lennox and you have all this time been playing the dying lover and the cruel mistress to each other? How I detest such duplicity! and duplicity with me! My heart was ever open to you, to him, to the whole world; while yours—nay, your very faces—were masked to me!"
Mary was too much confounded by her cousin's reproaches to be able to reply to them for some time; and when she did attempt to vindicate herself, she found it was in vain. Lady Emily refused to listen to her; and in haughty displeasure quitted the room, leaving poor Mary overwhelmed with sorrow and amazement.
There was a simplicity of heart, a singleness of idea in herself, that prevented her from ever attaching suspicion to others. But a sort of vague, undefined apprehension floated through her brain as she revolved the extraordinary behaviour of her cousin. Yet, it was that sort of feeling to which she could not give either a local habitation or a name; and she continued for some time in that most bewildering state of trying, yet not daring to think. Some time elapsed, and Mary's confusion of ideas was increasing rather than diminishing, when Lady Emily slowly entered the room, and stood some moments before her without speaking.
At length, making an effort, she abruptly said—"Pray, Mary, tell me what you think of me?"
Mary looked at her with surprise. "I think of you, my dear cousin, as I have always done."
"That is no answer to my question. What do you think of my behaviour just now?"
"I think," said Mary gently, "that if you have misunderstood me; that, open and candid yourself, almost to a fault, you readily resent the remotest appearance of duplicity in others. But you are too generous not to do me justice—"
"Ah, Mary! how little do I appeal in my own eyes at this moment; and how little, with all my boasting, have I known my own heart! No! It was not because I am open and candid that I resented your engagement with Colonel Lennox; it was because I was—because—cannot you guess?"
Mary's colour rose, as she cast down her eyes, and exclaimed with agitation, "No-no, indeed!"