‘That American girl!’ she exclaimed starting back, with some show of sternness on her brow.

‘Yes;—­that American girl’ said Silverbridge.

Then she recovered herself immediately.  Indignation natural indignation, would not serve her turn in the present emergency.  ’You know that cannot be.  You ought to know it.  What will your father say?  You have not dared to tell him.  That is so natural,’ she added, trying to appease his frown.  ’How possibly can it be told to him?  I will not say a word against her.’

‘No; do not do that.’

’But there are fitnesses of things which such a one as you cannot disregard without preparing yourself for a whole life of repentance.’

‘Look here, Mabel.’

‘Well.’

‘I will tell you the truth.’

’I would sooner lose all;—­the rank I have, the rank that I am to have, all these lands that you have been looking on; my father’s wealth, would give them all up, sooner than lose her.’  Now at any rate he was a man.  She was sure of that now.  This was more, very much more, not only than she had expected from him, but more than she had thought it possible that his character should have produced.

His strength reduced her to weakness.  ‘And I am nothing,’ she said.

’Yes, indeed; you are Lady Grex,—­whom all women envy, and whom all men honour.’

‘The poorest wretch this day under the sun.’

‘Do not say that.  You should take shame to say that.’

’I do take shame;—­and I do say it.  Sir, do you feel what you owe me?  Do you not know that you have made me the wretch I am?  How did you dare to talk to me as you did talk when you were in London?  You tell me that I am Lady Mabel Grex;—­and yet you come to me with a lie on your lips;—­with such a lie as that!  You must have taken me for some nursemaid on whom you had condescended to cast your eye!  It cannot be that even you should have dared to treat Lady Mabel Grex after such a fashion as that!  And now you have cast your eye at this other girl.  You can never marry her!’

‘I shall endeavour to do so.’

‘You can never marry her,’ she said, stamping her foot.  She had now lost all the caution which she had taught herself for the prosecution of her scheme,—­all the care with which she had burdened herself.  Now she was natural enough.  ’No,—­you can never marry her.  You could not show yourself after it in your clubs, or in Parliament, or in the world.  Come home, do you say?  No, I will not go to your home.  It is not my home.  Cold;—­of course I am cold;—­cold through to the heart.’

‘I cannot leave you alone here,’ he said, for she had now turned from him, and was walking with hurried steps and short turns on the edge of the bank, which at this place was almost a precipice.

’You have left me,—­utterly to the cold—­more desolate than I am here even though I should spend the night among the trees.  But I will go back, and will tell your father everything.  If my father were other than he is,—­if my brother were better to me, you would not have done this.’