e. To Mrs. Mountjoy the fact had been most
injurious to Harry's character. Harry had wilfully kept the secret while
all the world was at work looking for Mountjoy Scarborough; and, as far
as Mrs. Mountjoy could understand, it might well be that Harry had
struck the fatal blow that had sent her nephew to his long account. All
the impossibilities in the case had not dawned upon her. It had not
occurred to her that Mountjoy could not have been killed and his body
made away with without some great effort, in the performance of which
the "scamp" would hardly have risked his life or his character. But the
scamp was certainly a scamp, even though he might not be a murderer, or
he would have revealed the secret. In fact, Mrs. Mountjoy believed in
the matter exactly what Augustus had intended, and, so believing, had
resolved that her daughter should suffer any purgatory rather than
become Harry's wife.

But her daughter made her resolutions exactly in the contrary direction.
She in truth did know what had been done on that night, while her mother
was in ignorance. The extent of her mother's ignorance she understood,
but she did not at all know where her mother had got her information.
She felt that Harry's secret was in hands other than he had intended,
and that some one must have spoken of the scene. It occurred to Florence
at the moment that this must have come from Mountjoy himself, whom she
believed,--and rightly believed,--to have been the only second person
present on the occasion. And if he had told it to any one, then must
that "any one" know where and how he had disappeared. And the
information must have been given to her mother solely with the view of
damaging Harry's character, and of preventing Harry's marriage.

Thinking of all this, Florence felt that a premeditated and foul
attempt,--for, as she turned it in her mind, the attempt seemed to be
very foul,--was being made to injure Harry. A false accusation was
brought against him, and was grounded on a misrepresentation of the
truth in such a manner as to subvert it altogether to Harry's injury. It
should have no effect upon her. To this determination she came at once,
and declared to herself solemnly that she would be true to it. An
attempt was made to undermine him in her estimation; but they who made
it had not known her character. She was sure of herself now, within her
own bosom, that she was bound in a peculiar way to be more than
ordinarily true to Harry Ann