a minute or two of quiet. I want
nothing more."

The silence in the room was unbroken until Lady Lundie spoke again.
She asked for Blanche's letter. After reading it carefully, she laid it
aside, and fell for a while into deep thought.

"I have done Blanche an injustice!" she exclaimed. "My poor Blanche!"

"You think she knows nothing about it?"

"I am certain of it! You forget, Mrs. Glenarm, that this horrible
discovery casts a doubt on my step-daughter's marriage. Do you think, if
she knew the truth, she would write of a wretch who has mortally injured
her as she writes here? They have put her off with the excuse that
she innocently sends to _me._ I see it as plainly as I see you! Mr.
Brinkworth and Sir Patrick are in league to keep us both in the dark.
Dear child! I owe her an atonement. If nobody else opens her eyes, I
will do it. Sir Patrick shall find that Blanche has a friend in Me!"

A smile--the dangerous smile of an inveterately vindictive woman
thoroughly roused--showed itself with a furtive suddenness on her face.
Mrs. Glenarm was a little startled. Lady Lundie below the surface--as
distinguished from Lady Lundie _on_ the surface--was not a pleasant
object to contemplate.

"Pray try to compose yourself," said Mrs. Glenarm. "Dear Lady Lundie,
you frighten me!"

The bland surface of her ladyship appeared smoothly once more; drawn
back, as it were, over the hidden inner self, which it had left for the
moment exposed to view.

"Forgive me for feeling it!" she said, with the patient sweetness which
so eminently distinguished her in times of trial. "It falls a little
heavily on a poor sick woman--innocent of all suspicion, and insulted by
the most heartless neglect. Don't let me distress you. I shall rally, my
dear; I shall rally! In this dreadful calamity--this abyss of crime and
misery and deceit--I have no one to depend on but myself. For Blanche's
sake, the whole thing must be cleared up--probed, my dear, probed to the
depths. Blanche must take a position that is worthy of her. Blanche must
insist on her rights, under My protection. Never mind what I suffer, or
what I sacrifice. There is a work of justice for poor weak Me to do.
It shall be done!" said her ladyship, fanning herself with an aspect of
illimitable resolution. "It shall be done!"

"But, Lady Lundie what can you do? They are all away in the south. And
as for that abominable woman--"

Lady Lundie touched Mrs. Glenarm on the shoulder with