never loved, amidst all her grief and humiliation there was a fearful
delight in that presence from which she had been exiled since her youth
--nay, delight unaccountable to herself, even in that rough, vehement,
bitter tempest of reproach, for an instinct told her that there would
have been no hatred in the language had no love been lingering in the
soul.

"Speak," said Darrell gently, softened, despite himself, by her evident
struggle to control emotion.

Twice she began-twice voice failed her. At last her words came forth
audibly. She began with her plea for Lionel and Sophy, and gathered
boldness by her zeal on their behalf. She proceeded to vindicate her own
motives-to acquit herself of his harsh charge. She scheme for his
degradation! She had been too carried away by her desire to promote his
happiness--to guard him from the possibility of a self-reproach. At
first he listened to her with haughty calmness; merely saying, in
reference to Sophy and Lionel, "I have nothing to add or to alter in the
resolution I have communicated to Lionel." But when she thus insensibly
mingled their cause with her own, his impatience broke out. "My
happiness? Oh! well have you proved the sincerity with which you schemed
for that! Save me from self-reproach--me! Has Lady Montfort so wholly
forgotten that she was once Caroline Lyndsay that she can assume the part
of a warning angel against the terrors of self-reproach?"

"Ah!" she murmured faintly, "can you suppose, however fickle and
thankless I may seem to you--"

"Seem!" he repeated.