‘So do I,’ said Miss Cassewary.  ‘If it is an accident—­’

‘Of course it is an accident,’ said Tregear angrily,—­looking round at Mary, who blushed up to her eyes.

‘I did not mean to doubt it,’ said the old lady.  ’But as it has occurred, Mabel, don’t you think that he had better go?’

‘He won’t bite anybody, Miss Cass.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Mary, speaking for the first time.  ’But now he is here—­’ Then she stopped herself, rose from the sofa, sat down, and then rising again, stepped up to her lover,—­who rose at the same moment,—­and threw herself into his arms and put up her lips to be kissed.

‘This won’t do at all,’ said Silverbridge.  Miss Cassewary clasped her hands together and looked up to heaven.  She probably had never seen such a thing done before.  Lady Mabel’s eyes were filled with tears, and though in all this there was much to cause her anguish, still in her heart of hearts, she admired the brave girl who could thus show her truth to her lover.

‘Now go,’ said Mary, through her sobs.

‘Now own one,’ ejaculated Tregear.

‘Yes, yes, yes; always your own.  Go,—­go, go.’  She was weeping and sobbing as she said this, and hiding her face with her handkerchief.  He stood for a moment irresolute, and then left the room without a word of adieu to anyone.

‘You have behaved very badly,’ said the brother.

‘She has behaved like an angel,’ said Mabel, throwing her arms round Mary, as she spoke, ’like an angel.  If there had been a girl whom you loved and who loved you, would you have not wished it?  Would you not have worshipped her for showing that she was not ashamed of her love?’

‘I am not a bit ashamed,’ said Mary.

’And I say you have no cause.  No one knows him like I do.  How good he is, and how worthy!’ Immediately after that Silverbridge took his sister away, and Lady Mabel, escaping from Miss Cass was alone.  ‘She loves him almost as I have loved him,’ she said to herself.  ‘I wonder whether he can love her as he did me?’

CHAPTER 30

What Came of the Meeting

Not a word was said in the cab as Lord Silverbridge took his sister to Carlton Terrace, and he leaving her without any reference to the scene which had taken place, when an idea struck him that this would be cruel.  ‘Mary,’ he said, ’I was very sorry for all that.’

‘It was not my doing.’

’I suppose it was nobody’s doing.  But I am very sorry that it occurred.  I think you should have controlled yourself.’

‘No!’ she almost shouted.

‘I think so.’

’No;—­if you mean by controlling myself, holding my tongue.  He is the man I love,—­whom I have promised to marry.’

‘But, Mary,—­do ladies generally embrace their lovers in public?’

’No;—­nor should I. I never did such a thing in my life before.  But as he was there I had to show that I was not ashamed of him!  Do you think I should have done it if you all had not been there?’ Then again she burst into tears.