"I must tell you. Mr.
Brand spoke to me before he wrote to papa. I told him to write."

Lady Caroline put her eye-glass and looked curiously at her daughter.
"You told him to write, my dear child? And how did that come about?
Don't you know that it was equivalent to accepting him?"

"Yes, mamma. And I did accept him."

"My dear Margaret!" The tone was that of pitying contempt. "You must
have been out of your senses! Well, we can easily rectify the
matter--that is one good thing. Why, my darling, when did he find time
to speak to you? At Lady Ashley's?"

"In the park, near the forget-me-not brook," murmured Margaret, with
downcast eyes.

"He met you there?"

"Yes."

"More than once? And you allowed him to meet you? Oh, Margaret!"

Lady Caroline's voice was admirably managed. The gradual surprise,
shocked indignation, and reproach of her tones made the tears come to
Margaret's eyes.

"Indeed, mamma," she said, "I am very sorry. I did not know at first--at
least I did not think--that I was doing what you would not like. He used
to meet me when I went into the park, sometimes--when Alicia was
reading. Alicia did not know. And he was very nice, he was always _nice_
mamma. He told me a great deal about himself--how discontented he was
with his life, and how I might help him to make it better. And I should
like to help him, mamma: it seems to me it would be a good thing to do.
And if you and papa would help him too, he might take quite a different
position in the County."

"My poor child!" said Caroline. "My poor deluded child!"

She lay silent for a few moments, thinking how to frame the argument
which she felt was most likely to appeal to Margaret's tenderer
feelings. "Of course," she said at last, very slowly, "of course, if he
told you so much about his past life, he told you about his
marriage--about that little boy's mother."

"He said that he had been very unhappy. I do not think," said Margaret
with simplicity, "that he loved his first wife as he loves me."

"No doubt he made you think so, dear. His first wife, indeed! Did he
tell you that his first wife was alive?"

"Mamma!"

"He says he is divorced from her," said Lady Caroline, sarcastically,
"and seems to think it is no drawback to have been divorced. I and your
father think differently. I do not mean there is any legal obstacle; but
he took a very unfair advantage of your youth and inexperience by never
letting you know that fact--or, at any r