Even the moments occupied in reprimanding the servant had been moments seized on as the pretext for another delay.

The hasty entrance into the room, the nervous assumption of playfulness in language and manner, the evasive and wandering eyes, were all referable to the same cause.

In the presence of others, Lady Janet had successfully silenced the protest of her own inbred delicacy and inbred sense of honor.

In the presence of Mercy, whom she loved with a mother's love--in the presence of Mercy, for whom she had stooped to deliberate concealment of the truth--all that was high and noble in the woman's nature rose in her and rebuked her.

What will the daughter of my adoption, the child of my first and last experience of maternal love, think of me, now that I have made myself an accomplice in the fraud of which she is ashamed?
How can I look her in the face, when I have not hesitated, out of selfish consideration for my own tranquillity, to forbid that frank avowal of the truth which her finer sense of duty had spontaneously bound her to make?
Those were the torturing questions in Lady Janet's mind, while her arm was wound affectionately round Mercy's waist, while her fingers were busying themselves familiarly with the arrangement of Mercy's hair.