Conning was again requested to wait outside the Countess’s door.  She was the bearer of another note.  Evan read it likewise; tore it up, and said that there was no answer.

The Castle of Negation held out no longer.  Ruthless battalions poured over the walls, blew up the Countess’s propriety, made frightful ravages in her complexion.  Down fell her hair.

‘You cannot possibly go to breakfast,’ said Caroline.

‘I must!  I must!’ cried the Countess.  ’Why, my dear, if he has done it-wretched creature! don’t you perceive that, by withholding our presences, we become implicated with him?’ And the Countess, from a burst of frenzy, put this practical question so shrewdly, that Caroline’s wits succumbed to her.

‘But he has not done it; he is acting!’ she pursued, restraining her precious tears for higher purposes, as only true heroines can.  ’Thinks to frighten me into submission!’

‘Do you not think Evan is right in wishing us to leave, after—­after—­’ Caroline humbly suggested.

‘Say, before my venerable friend has departed this life,’ the Countess took her up.  ’No, I do not.  If he is a fool, I am not.  No, Carry:  I do not jump into ditches for nothing.  I will have something tangible for all that I have endured.  We are now tailors in this place, remember.  If that stigma is affixed to us, let us at least be remunerated for it.  Come.’

Caroline’s own hard struggle demanded all her strength yet she appeared to hesitate.  ‘You will surely not disobey Evan, Louisa?’

‘Disobey?’ The Countess amazedly dislocated the syllables.  ’Why, the boy will be telling you next that he will not permit the Duke to visit you!  Just your English order of mind, that cannot—­brutes!—­conceive of friendship between high-born men and beautiful women.  Beautiful as you truly are, Carry, five years more will tell on you.  But perhaps my dearest is in a hurry to return to her Maxwell?  At least he thwacks well!’

Caroline’s arm was taken.  The Countess loved an occasional rhyme when a point was to be made, and went off nodding and tripping till the time for stateliness arrived, near the breakfast-room door.  She indeed was acting.  At the bottom of her heart there was a dismal rage of passions:  hatred of those who would or might look tailor in her face:  terrors concerning the possible re-visitation of the vengeful Sir Abraham:  dread of Evan and the efforts to despise him:  the shocks of many conflicting elements.  Above it all her countenance was calmly, sadly sweet:  even as you may behold some majestic lighthouse glimmering over the tumult of a midnight sea.