om Ayrshire, she made the man promise to
return to her on the following morning.

CHAPTER LX

"Let It Be As Though It Had Never Been"

Between her son, and her married daughter, and Lucy Morris, poor Lady
Fawn's life had become a burthen to her. Everything was astray, and
there was no happiness or tranquillity at Fawn Court. Of all simply
human creeds the strongest existing creed for the present in the
minds of the Fawn ladies was that which had reference to the general
iniquity of Lizzie Eustace. She had been the cause of all these
sorrows, and she was hated so much the more because she had not been
proved to be iniquitous before all the world. There had been a time
when it seemed to be admitted that she was so wicked in keeping the
diamonds in opposition to the continued demands made for them by
Mr. Camperdown, that all people would be justified in dropping her,
and Lord Fawn among the number. But since the two robberies, public
opinion had veered round three or four points in Lizzie's favour, and
people were beginning to say that she had been ill-used. Then had
come Mrs. Hittaway's evidence as to Lizzie's wicked doings down in
Scotland,--the wicked doings which Andy Gowran had described with a
vehemence so terribly moral; and that which had been at first, as it
were, added to the diamonds, as a supplementary weight thrown into
the scale, so that Lizzie's iniquities might bring her absolutely to
the ground, had gradually assumed the position of being the first
charge against her. Lady Fawn had felt no aversion to discussing the
diamonds. When Lizzie was called a "thief," and a "robber," and a
"swindler" by one or another of the ladies of the family,--who, in
using those strong terms, whispered the words as ladies are wont to
do when they desire to lessen the impropriety of the strength of
their language by the gentleness of the tone in which the words are
spoken,--when Lizzie was thus described in Lady Fawn's hearing in her
own house, she had felt no repugnance to it. It was well that the
fact should be known, so that everybody might be aware that her son
was doing right in refusing to marry so wicked a lady. But when the
other thing was added to it; when the story was told of what Mr.
Gowran had seen among the rocks, and when gradually that became the
special crime which was to justify her son in dropping the lady's
acquaintance, then Lady Fawn became very unhappy, and found the
subject to be, as Mrs. Hit