"You must submit to it—you must answer me, mamma," returned the daughter. "The time has come when I ought to know the whole truth of our family. I cannot leave my home with a cloud resting on any part of the old life. What secrets there are should be told both to me and to Sir James."
"You are headstrong and unreasonable," said Mrs. Kinniside.
"I am in my right," returned Clementina; "and I will not permit a dishonor that I might by a little firmness prevent."
Her mother looked at her, this time with absolute terror. She had never seen her as she was now, with so stern and rigid a manner—rigid as the death-grip is rigid—and with such an unusual expression in her eyes; yet, for all that lay upon the issue, she would not give way—even though her firmness should strike that expression into an enduring fact.
"I am sorry, Clementina, to refuse any request you may make of me," she began, with formal politeness; "but I will tell you nothing. This much only—there is a secret, and it has some connection with Miss Arthur; but if I had wished you to know it, I would have told you without entreaty. Now, you may make up your mind to things as they are, the best way you can. Neither threats nor prayers get anything from me, as you well know, when I have determined to be silent; and on this subject I shall be silent to the day of my death."
With which she closed her thin lips into even more than their usual hardness, and the battle of the wills was over. Clementina knew now that her mother would not yield, and that she would let her sit there till she died, rather than give way, when she had once spoken as she had spoken now.
"Very well; have your own way, mamma," she said, slowly. "Perhaps I shall be able to have mine, too."
"Perhaps you will, my dear," said her mother; and continued her undressing with outward tranquillity, whatever the burning of the troubled heart within.
But "going to bed" was a mere form that night with both—the one spending the long hours in making her plans; and the other, dreading what they might be, in devising means for frustrating them.
In the morning Clementina was flushed and feverish, but with the same hard manner and expression that had come to her last night; while Mrs. Kinniside looked old and wan and worn—all the peaceful glow of her late triumph effaced, and the look of a hunted animal that she used to have back again in her eyes.
"My dear Miss Bailey," she said to Bessie, after breakfast—(Bessie was staying with them till the marriage, at Mrs. Kinniside's own desire: perhaps because she wanted her as a companion to Clementina, as she said; perhaps because she wanted to have her immediately under her own eyes, because of those quick blushes of hers, and the great black eyes that used to grow so dangerously soft, and that used to look so dangerously straight; or, it might be, that she wished to make the house as bright and attractive to Sir James as possible, and so had the little romp as a counterpoise to Clementina's rather depressing saintliness)—"My dear, I want to speak to you."
"Yes?" said little Bessie, looking up into her face.
"You love Clementina, do you not, child?"
"Oh! yes," cried Bessie, frankly; "I am very fond of her!"
"What shall you think if I give her into your charge for the next few days?'
"What do you mean, Mrs. Kinniside?" asked Bessie, astonished.
"I mean that I want you to take care of her, and to look after her," replied Mrs. Kinniside, settling her cap-string, and so avoiding the necessity of looking up. For she was afraid even of little Bessie's not too penetrating eyes, knowing
