s been telling you some of
her plausible stories, which do more harm than good, because no one
knows which part to believe. There was some nonsense between Mark and me
when we were young and happy--I confess that. Perhaps I thought he meant
more than he did, and dwelt upon it as silly girls do, especially when
they have nothing else to care for. Then came the discovery of all his
debts and scrapes, poor fellow, and--I won't deny it--it half killed me,
more especially when I found he had been attached to some low girl,
and avowed that he had never seriously thought of me--he believed I
understood it as all sport. I was very ill. I wish I had died. There
was no more to be done but to hate him. My uncle and aunt Edward were
horridly savage, chiefly because I hindered them from going to Italy;
and Mrs. George Gardner thought I had been deluding Mark! Then Lady
Fotheringham asked us, and--it was dull enough to be sure, and poor
Pelham was always in the way--but they were kind comfortable folks. Lady
Fotheringham is a dear old dame, and I was in dull spirits just then,
and rather liked to poke about with her, and get her to tell me about
your brother and his Helen--'

'Why, Jane said you were dying of low spirits!'

'Well, so I was. I hated it excessively sometimes. Jane is not entirely
false in that. The evenings were horrid, and Sundays beyond everything
unbearable. I confess I was delighted to get away to Bath; but there--if
Jane would but have helped me--I would, indeed I would, have been
thankful to have gone back to Worthbourne, even if I had had to play at
draughts with Pelham for the rest of my days. But Jane was resolved,
and all my strength and spirit had been crushed out of me. She would not
even let me write to you nor to Lady Fotheringham till it was too late.'

'Well, that is all past,' said Theodora, whose face had shown more
sympathy than she thought it right to express in words. 'The point is,
what is right now?'

And you see it is folly to say there is any harm or danger in my seeing
Mark: he never had any attachment to me seven years ago, nor any other
time, and whatever I felt for him had a thorough cure. I am not ashamed
to say I am glad he should be here to give him a chance of marrying a
fortune. That is the whole story. Are you satisfied?'

'Satisfied on what I never doubted, your own intentions, but no further.
You ought to abstain from all appearance of evil.'

'I am not going to give my cousin