"Mademoiselle de Barras, I need no declamation from you; and, pardon me,
Mrs. Marston, nor from you either," retorted he; "I have my information
from one on whom I can rely; let that suffice. Of course you are both
agreed in a story. I dare say you are ready to swear you never so much as
canvassed my conduct, and my coldness and estrangement--eh? These are the
words, are not they?"

"I have done you no wrong, sir; madame can tell you. I am no
mischief-maker; no, I never was such a thing. Was I, madame?" persisted
the governess--"bear witness for me?"

"I have told you my mind, Mademoiselle de Barras," interrupted Marston;
"I will have no altercation, if you please. I think, Mrs. Marston, we
have had enough of this; may I accompany you hence?"

So saying, he took the poor lady's passive hand, and led her from the
room. Mademoiselle stood in the center of the apartment, alone, erect,
with heaving breast and burning cheek--beautiful, thoughtful, guilty--the
very type of the fallen angelic. There for a time, her heart all
confusion, her mind darkened, we must leave her; various courses before
her, and as yet without resolution to choose among them; a lost spirit,
borne on the eddies of the storm; fearless and self-reliant, but with no
star to guide her on her dark, malign, and forlorn way.

Mrs. Marston, in her own room, reviewed the agitating scene through which
she had just been so unexpectedly carried. The tremendous suspicion
which, at the first disclosure of the tableau we have described, smote
the heart and brain of the poor lady with the stun of a thunderbolt, had
been, indeed, subsequently disturbed, and afterwards contradicted; but