Wenna must come back directly, for it's always 'Wenna, do this,' and
'Wenna, do that;' and if Wenna isn't there, of course the sky will
tumble down on the earth--Mother, what's the matter, and where's Wenna?"

Mabyn was suddenly brought up in the middle of her voluble speech by the
strange expression on her mother's face.

"Oh, Mabyn, something dreadful has happened to our Wenna."

Mabyn turned deadly white. "Is she ill?" she said, almost in a whisper.

"No, not ill, but a great trouble has fallen on her."

Then the mother, in a low voice, apparently fearful that any one should
overhear, began to tell her younger daughter of all she had learnt
within the past day or two--how young Trelyon had been bold enough to
tell Wenna that he loved her; how Wenna had dallied with her conscience
and been loath to part with him; how at length she had as good as
revealed to him that she loved him in return; and how she was now
overwhelmed and crushed beneath a sense of her own faithlessness and the
impossibility of making reparation to her betrothed.

"Only to think, Mabyn," said the mother in accents of despair, "that all
this distress should have come about in such a quiet and unexpected way!
Who could have foreseen it? Why, of all the people in the world, you
would have thought our Wenna was the least likely to have any misery of
this sort; and many a time--don't you remember?--I used to say it was so
wise of her getting engaged to a prudent and elderly man, who would save
her from the plagues and trials that young girls often suffer at the
hands of their lovers. I thought she was so comfortably settled.