“Why should you?” asked Georgiana; and one to whom the faces of the two had been displayed at that moment would have pronounced them a hostile couple.

“Why should I prevent him?” Emilia doled out the question slowly, and gave herself no further thought of replying to it.

Apparently Georgiana understood the significance of this odd silence:  she was perhaps touched by it.  She said, “You feel that you have a power over him.  You wish to exercise it.  Never mind wherefore.  If you do—­if you try, and succeed—­if, by the aid of this love presupposed to exist, you win him to what you require of him—­do you honestly think the love is then immediately to be dropped?”

Emilia meditated.  She caught up her voice hastily.  “I think so.  Yes.  I hope so.  I mean it to be.”

“With a noble lover, Emilia.  Not with a selfish one.  In showing him the belief you have in your power over him, you betray that he has power over you.  And it is to no object.  His family, his position, his prospects—­all tell you that he cannot marry you if he would.  And he is, besides, engaged—­”

“Let her suffer!” Emilia’s eyes flashed.

“Ah!” and Georgiana thought, “Have I come upon your nature at last?”

However it might be, Emilia was determined to show it.

“She took my lover from me, and I say, let her suffer!  I would not hurt her myself—­I would not lay my finger on her:  but she has eyes like blue stones, and such a mouth!—­I think the Austrian executioner has one like it.  If she suffers, and goes all dark as I did, she will show a better face.  Let her keep my lover.  He is not mine, but he was; and she took him from me.  That woman cannot feed on him as I did.  I know she has no hunger for love.  He will look at those blue bits of ice, and think of me.  I told him so.  Did I not tell him that in Devon?  I saw her eyelids move as fast as I spoke.  I think I look on Winter when I see her lips.  Poor, wretched Wilfrid!”

Emilia half-sobbed this exclamation out.  “I don’t wish to hurt either of them,” she added, with a smile of such abrupt opposition to her words that Georgiana was in perplexity.  A lady who has assumed the office of lecturer, will, in such a frame of mind, lecture on, if merely to vindicate to herself her own preconceptions.  Georgiana laid her finger severely upon Wilfrid’s manifest faults; and, in fine, she spoke a great deal of the common sense that the situation demanded.  Nevertheless, Emilia held to her scheme.  But, in the meantime, Georgiana had seen more clearly into the girl’s heart; and she had been won, also, by a natural gracefulness that she now perceived in her, and which led her to think, “Is Merthyr again to show me that he never errs in his judgement?” An unaccountable movement of tenderness to Emilia made her drop a few kisses on her forehead.  Emilia shut her eyes, waiting for more.  Then she looked up, and said, “Have you felt this love for me very long?” at which the puny flame, scarce visible, sprang up, and warmed to a great heat.