‘Oh!  Edward, Edward, I am nearly dead with fright!’ she exclaimed.

‘I am not Edward,’ a woman answered.  Olive started a step backwards; she would have fainted, but at the moment the words were spoken Mrs. Lawler’s face was revealed in a beam of weak light that fell through a vista in the branches.

‘Who are you?  Let me pass.’

’Who am I?  You know well enough; we haven’t been neighbours for fifteen years without knowing each other by sight.  So you are going to run away with Captain Hibbert!’

’Oh, Mrs. Lawler, let me pass.  I am in a great hurry, I cannot wait; and you won’t say anything about meeting me in the wood, will you?’

’Let you pass, indeed; and what do you think I came here for?  Oh, I know all about it—­all about the corner of the road, and the carriage and post-horses! a very nice little plan and very nicely arranged, but I’m afraid it won’t come off—­at least, not to-night.’

‘Oh, won’t it, and why?’ cried Olive, clasping her hands.  ’Then it was Edward who sent you to meet me, to tell me that—­that—­What has happened?’

’Sent me to tell you!  Whom do you take me for?  Is it for a—­well, a nice piece of cheek!  I carry your messages?  Well, I never!’

‘Then what did you come here for—­how did you know? . . .’

’How did I know?  That’s my business.  What did I come here for?  What do you think?  Why, to prevent you from going off with Teddy.’

‘With Teddy!’

‘Yes, with Teddy.  Do you think no one calls him Teddy but yourself?’

Then Olive understood, and, with her teeth clenched she said, ’No, it isn’t true; it is a lie; I will not believe it.  Let me pass.  What business have you to detain me?—­what right have you to speak to me?  We don’t know you; no one knows you:  you are a bad woman whom no one will know.’

’A bad woman!  I like that—­and from you.  And what do you want to be, why are you running away from home?  Why, to be what I was.  We’re all alike, the same blood runs in our veins, and when the devil is in us we must have sweethearts, get them how we may:  the airs and graces come on after; they are only so much trimming.’

’How dare you insult me, you bad woman?  Let me pass; I don’t know what you mean.’

’Oh yes, you do.  You think Teddy will take you off to Paris, and spoon you and take you out; but he won’t, at least not to-night.  I shan’t give him up so easily as you think for, my lady.’

’Give him up!  What is he to you?  How dare you speak so of my future husband?  Captain Hibbert only loves me, he has often told me so.’

’Loves nobody but you!  I suppose you think that he never kissed, or spooned, or took anyone on his knee but you.  Well, I suppose at twenty we’d believe anything a man told us; and we always think we are getting the first of it when we are only getting someone else’s leavings.  But it isn’t for chicks of girls like you that a man cares, it isn’t to you a man comes for the love he wants; your kisses are very skim milk indeed, and it is we who teach them the words of love that they murmur afterwards in your ears.’