On withdrawing to her dressing-room after dinner, Mrs. Wilson commenced the disagreeable duty of removing the veil from the eyes of her niece, by recounting to her the substance of Mrs. Fitzgerald’s last communication.  To the innocence of Emily such persecution could excite no other sensations than surprise and horror; and as her aunt omitted the part concerning the daughter of Sir Edward Moseley, she naturally expressed her wonder as to who the wretch could be.

“Possibly, aunt,” she said with an involuntary shudder, “some of the many gentlemen we have lately seen, and one who has had art enough to conceal his real character from the world.”

“Concealment, my love,” replied Mrs. Wilson, “would be hardly necessary.  Such is the fashionable laxity of morals, that I doubt not many of his associates would laugh at his misconduct, and that he would still continue to pass with the world as an honorable man.”

“And ready,” cried her niece, “to sacrifice human life, in the defence of any ridiculous punctilio.”

“Or,” added Mrs. Wilson, striving to draw nearer to her subject, “with a closer veil of hypocrisy, wear even an affectation of principle and moral feeling that would seem to forbid such a departure from duty in favor of custom.”

“Oh! no, dear aunt,” exclaimed Emily, with glowing cheeks and eyes dancing with pleasure, “he would hardly dare to be so very base.  It would be profanity.”

Mrs. Wilson sighed heavily as she witnessed that confiding esteem which would not permit her niece even to suspect that an act which in Denbigh had been so warmly applauded, could, even in another, proceed from unworthy motives; and she found it would be necessary to speak in the plainest terms, to awaken her suspicions.  Willing, however, to come gradually to the distressing truth, she replied—­

“And yet, my dear, men who pride themselves greatly on their morals, nay, even some who wear the mask of religion, and perhaps deceive themselves, admit and practise this very appeal to arms.  Such inconsistencies are by no means uncommon.  And why, then, might there not, with equal probability, be others who would revolt at murder, and yet not hesitate being guilty of lesser enormities?  This is, in some measure, the case of every man; and it is only to consider killing in unlawful encounters as murder, to make it one in point.”

“Hypocrisy is so mean a vice, I should not think a brave man could stoop to it,” said Emily, “and Julia admits he was brave.”

“And would not a brave man revolt at the cowardice of insulting an unprotected woman?  And your hero did that too,” replied Mrs. Wilson, bitterly, losing her self-command in indignation.

“Oh! do not call him my hero, I beg of you, dear aunt,” said Emily, starting, excited by so extraordinary an allusion, but instantly losing the unpleasant sensation in the delightful consciousness of the superiority of the man on whom she had bestowed her own admiration.