Lying in Brithlow Wood

"My disgrace? Take care, mother!"

"Do you dare speak in that tone to me?" She rose up from the table, livid with passion. "I repeat it, Sir Everard Kingsland--your disgrace! Mystery shrouds this girl's birth and her father's marriage--if he ever was married--and where there is mystery there is guilt."

"A sweeping assertion!" the baronet said, with concentrated scorn; "but in the present instance, my good mother, a little out of place. The mystery is of your own making. The late Mrs. Harold Hunsden was a native of New York. There she was married--there she died at her daughter's birth. Captain Hunsden cherishes her memory all too deeply to make it the town talk, hence all the county is up agape inventing slander. I hope you are satisfied?"

Lady Kingsland stood still, gazing at him in surprise.

"Who told you all this?" she asked.

"She who had the best right to know--the slandered woman's daughter."

"Indeed--indeed!" slowly and searchingly. "You have been talking to her, then? And your whole heart is really set on this matter, Everard?"

She came a step nearer; her voice softened; she laid one slender hand, with infinite tenderness, on his shoulder.

"What does it matter?" he retorted, impatiently. "For Heaven's sake, let me alone, mother!"

"My boy, if you really love this wild girl so much, if your whole heart is set on her, I must withdraw my objections. I can refuse my darling nothing. Woo Harriet Hunsden, wed her, and bring her here. I will try and receive her kindly for your sake."