But Lady Newhaven had no intention of letting her go.

She only wished to indicate to her her true position.

And gradually, not without renewed outbursts of tears, not without traversing many layers of prepared conventional feelings, in which a few thin streaks of genuine emotion wore embedded, she told her story--the story of a young, high-minded, and neglected wife, and of a husband callous, indifferent, a scorner of religion, unsoftened even by the advent of the children--"such sweet children, such little darlings"-- and the gradual estrangement.

Then came the persistent siege to the lonely heart of one not pretty, perhaps, but fatally attractive to men; the lonely heart's unparalleled influence for good over the besieger.
"He would do anything," said Lady Newhaven, looking earnestly at Rachel.
"My influence over him is simply boundless.

If I said, as I sometimes did at balls, how sorry I was to see some plain girl standing out, he would go and dance with her.