She looked at her mother.

There were no tears in her eyes: only a dull thwart look of terror and suspicion.

The shaft, however bravely and cunningly sped, had missed its mark.
Poor Grace! Her usual eloquence utterly failed her, as most things do in which one is wont to trust, before the pressure of a real and horrible evil.

She had no heart to make fine sentences, to preach a brilliant sermon of commonplaces.

What could she say that her mother had not known long before she was born?
And throwing herself on her knees at her mother's feet, she grasped both her hands and looked into her face imploringly,--"Mother! mother! mother!" was all that she could say: but their tone meant more than all words .-- Reproof, counsel, comfort, utter tenderness, and under-current of clear deep trust, bubbling up from beneath all passing suspicions, however dark and foul, were in it: but they were vain.
Baser terror, the parent of baser suspicion, had hardened that woman's heart for the while; and all she answered was,-- "Get up! what is this foolery ?" "I will not! I will not rise till you have told me." "What ?" "Whether"-- and she forced the words slowly out in a low whisper, "whether you know--anything of--of--Mr.Thurnall's money--his belt ?" "Is the girl mad! Belt! Money?
Do you take me for a thief, wench!" "No! no! no! Only say you--you know nothing of it!" "Psha! girl! Go to your school:" and the old woman tried to rise.
"Only say that! only let me know that it is a dream--a hideous dream which the devil put into my wicked, wicked heart--and let me know that I am the basest, meanest of daughters for harbouring such a thought a moment! It will be comfort, bliss, to what I endure! Only say that, and I will crawl to your feet, and beg for your forgiveness,--ask you to beat me, like a child, as I shall deserve! Drive me out, if you will, and let me die, as I shall deserve! Only say the word, and take this fire from before my eyes, which burns day and night,--till my brain is dried up with misery and shame! Mother, mother, speak!" But then burst out the horrible suspicion, which falsehood, suspecting all others of being false as itself, had engendered in that mother's heart.
"Yes, viper! I see your plan! Do you think I do not know that you are in love with that fellow ?" Grace started as if she had been shot, and covered her face with her hands.
"Yes! and want me to betray myself--to tell a lie about myself, that you may curry favour with him--a penniless, unbelieving--" "Mother!" almost shrieked Grace, "I can bear no more! Say that it is a lie, and then kill me if you will!" "It is a lie, from beginning to end! What else should it be ?" And the woman, in the hurry of her passion, confirmed the equivocation with an oath; and then ran on, as if to turn her own thoughts, as well as Grace's, into commonplaces about "a poor old mother, who cares for nothing but you; who has worked her fingers to the bone for years to leave you a little money when she is gone! I wish I were gone! I wish I were out of this wretched ungrateful world, I do! To have my own child turn against me in my old age!" Grace lifted her hands from her face, and looked steadfastly at her mother.