relief of the
outburst, but James's first movement was to turn on him, as if he were
neglecting his son, sharply demanding, 'Who is with him?'

'He wished to be left with Mr. Holdsworth.'

'Is it come to this!' cried James. 'Oh, why did I not come down with
him? I might have prevented all this!'

'You could not have acted otherwise,' said the Earl, kindly. 'Your
engagement was already formed.'

'I could!' said James. 'I would not. I thought it one of your excuses
for helping us.'

'It is vain to lament these things now,' said Lord Ormersfield. 'It is
very kind in you to have come down, and it will give him great pleasure
if he be able to see you.'

'If!' James stammered between consternation and anger at the doubt,
and treated the Earl with a kind of implied resentment as if for
injustice suffered by Louis, but it was affecting to see his petulance
received with patience, almost with gratitude, as a proof of his
affection for Louis. The Earl stood upright and motionless before the
fire, answering steadily, but in an almost inward voice, all the
detailed questions put by James, who, seated on one chair, with his
hands locked on the back of the other, looked keenly up to him with his
sharp black eyes, often overflowing with tears, and his voice broken by
grief. When he had elicited that Louis had been much excited and
distressed by the thought of his failings, he burst out, 'Whatever you
may think, Lord Ormersfield, no one ever had less on his conscience!'

'I am sure of it.'

'I know of no one who would have given up his own way again and again
without a murmur, only to be called fickle.'

'Yes, it has often been so,' meekly said Lord Ormersfield.

'Fickle!' repeated James, warming with the topic, and pouring out what
had been boiling within for years. 'He was only fickle because his
standard was too high to be reached! You thought him weak!'

'There may be weakness by nature strengthened by principle,' said Mrs.
Ponsonby.

'True,' cried Jem, who, having taken no previous notice of her, had at
first on her speaking bent his brows on her as if to extend to her the
storm he was inflicting on poor, defenceless Lord Ormersfield, 'he is
thought soft because of his easy way; but come to the point where harm
displays itself, you can't move him a step farther--though he hangs
back in such a quiet, careless fashion, that it seems as if he was only
tired of the whole concern, and so it goes down again as