"La, no ma'am! I hadn't the heart."
Mrs. Gaunt was silent awhile. When she spoke again it was to inquire whether Ryder had given him the letter.
"That I did: and it brought the tears into his poor eyes; and such beautiful eyes as he has, to be sure. You would have pitied him if you had seen him read it, and cry over it, and then kiss it and put it in his bosom he did."
Mrs. Gaunt said nothing, but turned her head away.
The operator shot a sly glance into the looking-glass, and saw a pearly tear trickling down her subject's fair cheek. So she went on, all sympathy outside, and remorselessness within. "To think of that face, more like an angel's than a man's, to be dragged through a nasty horse-pond. 'T is a shame of master to set his men on a clergyman." And so was proceeding, with well-acted and catching warmth, to dig as dangerous a pit for Mrs. Gaunt as ever was dug for any lady; for whatever Mrs. Gaunt had been betrayed into saying, this Ryder would have used without mercy, and with diabolical skill.
Yes, it was a pit, and the lady's tender heart pushed her towards it, and her fiery temper drew her towards it.
Yet she escaped it this time. The dignity, delicacy, and pride, that is oftener found in these old families than out of them, saved her from that peril. She did not see the trap; but she spurned the bait by native instinct.
She threw up her hand in a moment, with a queenly gesture, and stopped the tempter.
"Not—one—word—from my servant against my husband in my hearing!" said she, superbly.
And Ryder shrank back into herself directly.