“Really, Lenore, you must be going too far.”

“I have shocked you; but you can’t conceive what it is to live with perpetual falsity.  No, I can’t use any other word.  I am always mistrusting and being angered, and my senses of right and wrong get so confused, that it is like groping in a maze.”  Her eyes were full of tears, but she exclaimed, “Tell me, Joanna, was there ever anything between Camilla and Mr. Poynsett?”

“Why bring that up again now?”

“Why did it go off?” insisted Lenore.

“Because Mrs. Poynsett could not give up and turn into a dowager, as if she were not the mistress herself.”

“Was that all?”

“So it was said.”

“I want to get to the bottom of it.  It was not because Lord Tyrrell came in the way.”

“I am afraid they thought so here.”

“Then,” said Eleonora, in a hard, dry way, “I know the reason of our being brought back here, and of a good deal besides.”

“My dear Lena, I am very sorry for you; but I think you had better keep this out of your mind, or you will fall into a hard, bitter, suspicious mood.”

“That is the very thing.  I am in a hard, bitter, suspicious mood, and I can’t see how to keep out of it; I don’t know when opposition is right and firm, and when it is only my own self-will.”

“Would it not be a good thing to talk to Julius Charnock?  You would not be betraying anything.”

“No!  I can’t seem to make up to the good clergyman!  Certainly not.  Besides, I’ve heard Camilla talking to his wife!”

“Talking?”

“Admiring that dress, which she had been sneering at to your mother, don’t you remember?  It was one of her honey-cups with venom below—­ only happily, Lady Rosamond saw through the flattery.  I’m ashamed whenever I see her!”

“I don’t think that need cut you off from Julius.”

“Tell me truly,” again broke in Lenore, “what Mrs. Poynsett really is.  She is a standing proverb with us for tyranny over her sons; not with Camilla alone, but with papa.”

“See how they love her!” cried Jenny, hotly.

“Camilla thinks that abject; but I can’t forget how Frank talked of her in those happy Rockpier days.”

“When you first knew him?” said Jenny.

They must have come at length to the real point, for Eleonora began at once—­“Yes; he was with his sick friend, and we were so happy; and now he is being shamefully used, and I don’t know what to do!”

“Indeed, Lenore,” said Jenny, in her downright way, “I do not understand.  You do not seem to care for him.”

“Of course I am wrong,” said the poor girl; “but I hoped I was doing the best thing for him.”  Then, as Jenny made an indignant sound, “See, Jenny, when he came to Rockpier, Camilla had been a widow about three months.  She never had been very sad, for Lord Tyrrell had been quite imbecile for a year, poor man!  And when Frank came, she could not make enough of him; and he and I both thought the two families had been devotedly fond of each other, and that she was only too glad to meet one of them.”