out straight
before her.

Better late than never. Mary did not say so, as her father had done,
but only thought it. "Thank you," she said, in a very low voice. "Has
any one else come?"

"No,--no one else. I am with Alice, and as I have very very much to
say, I have come alone. Oh! Mary,--dear Mary, is not this sad?" Mary
was not at all disposed to yield, or to acknowledge that the sadness
was, in any degree, her fault, but she remembered, at the moment, that
Lady Sarah had never called her "dear Mary" before. "Don't you wish
that you were back with George?"

"Of course I do. How can I wish anything else?"

"Why don't you go back to him?"

"Let him come here and fetch me, and be friends with papa. He promised
that he would come and stay here. Is he well, Sarah?"

"Yes; he is well."

"Quite well? Give him my love,--my best love. Tell him that in spite of
everything I love him better than all the world."

"I am sure you do."

"Yes;--of course I do. I could be so happy now if he would come to me."

"You can go to him. I will take you if you wish it."

"You don't understand," said Mary.

"What don't I understand?"

"About papa."

"Will he not let you go to your husband?"

"I suppose he would let me go;--but if I were gone what would become of
him?"

Lady Sarah did not, in truth, understand this. "When he gave you to be
married," she said, "of course he knew that you must go away from him
and live with your husband. A father does not expect a married daughter
to stay in his own house."

"But he expects to be able to go to hers. He does not expect to be
quarrelled with by everybody. If I were to go to Manor Cross, papa
couldn't even come and see me."

"I think he could."

"You don't know papa if you fancy he would go into any house in which
he was not welcome. Of course I know that you have all quarrelled with
him. You think because he beat the Marquis up in London that he
oughtn't ever to be spoken to again. But I love him for what he did
more dearly than ever. He did it for my sake. He was defending me, and
defending George. I have done nothing wrong. If it is only for George's
sake, I will never admit that I have deserved to be treated in this
way. None of you have come to see me before, since I came back from
London, and now George doesn't come."

"We should all have been kind to you if you had come to us first."

"Yes; and then I should never have been allowed to be here at all. Let
George c