Part 90 (2/2)

Without looking up, she murmured, 'If you would not force it from me at such a time.'

'Laura, it is for your own good. You are wretched now, my poor child; why not relieve yourself by telling all? If you have not acted openly, can you have any comfort till you have confessed? It may be a painful effort, but relief will come afterwards.'

'I have nothing to confess,' said Laura. 'There is no such thing as you think.'

'No engagement?'

'No.'

'Then what am I to understand by your exclamations?'

'It is no engagement,' repeated Laura. 'He would never have asked that without papa's consent. We are only bound by our own hearts.'

'And you have a secret understanding with him?'

'We have never written to each other; we have never dreamed of any intercourse that could be called clandestine. He would scorn it. He waited only for his promotion to declare it to papa.'

'And how long has it been declared to you?'

'Ever since the first summer Guy was here.'

'Three years!' exclaimed her mother. 'You have kept this from me three years! O Laura!'

'It was of no use to speak!' said Laura, faintly.

If she had looked up, she would have seen those words, 'no use,' cut her mother more deeply than all; but there was only coldness in the tone of the answer, 'No use to inform your parents, before you pledged your affections!'

'Indeed, mamma,' said Laura, 'I was sure that you knew his worth.'

'Worth! when he was teaching you to live in a course of insincerity?

Your father will be deeply hurt.'

'Papa! Oh, you must not tell him! Now, I have betrayed him, indeed! Oh, my weakness!' and another paroxysm of tears came on.

'Laura, you seem to think you owe nothing to any one but Philip. You forget you are a daughter! that you have been keeping up a system of disobedience and concealment, of which I could not have believed a child of mine could be capable. O Laura, how you have abused our confidence!'

Laura was touched by the sorrow of her tone; and, throwing her arms round her neck, sobbed out, 'You will forgive me, only forgive him!'

Mrs. Edmonstone was softened in a moment. 'Forgive you, my poor child!

You have been very unhappy!' and she kissed her, with many tears.

'Must you tell papa?' whispered Laura.

'Judge for yourself, Laura. Could I know such a thing, and hide it from him?'

Laura ceased, seeing her determined, and yielded to her pity, allowing herself to be nursed as she required, so exhausted was she. She was laid on the sofa, and made comfortable with pillows, in her mother's gentlest way. When Mrs. Edmonstone was called away, Laura held her dress, saying, 'You are kind to me, but you must forgive him. Say you have forgiven him, mamma, dearest!'

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