ef and a trouble I did not expect!' And
Lady Caroline whispered a few words to the girl.

'O my lady!' said the thunderstruck Milly. 'What _will_ you do?'

'You must say that your statement was a wicked lie, an invention, a
scandal, a deadly sin--that I told you to make it to screen me! That it
was I whom he married at Bath. In short, we must tell the truth, or I am
ruined--body, mind, and reputation--for ever!'

But there is a limit to the flexibility of gentle-souled women. Milly by
this time had so grown to the idea of being one flesh with this young
man, of having the right to bear his name as she bore it; had so
thoroughly come to regard him as her husband, to dream of him as her
husband, to speak of him as her husband, that she could not relinquish
him at a moment's peremptory notice.

'No, no,' she said desperately, 'I cannot, I will not give him up! Your
ladyship took him away from me alive, and gave him back to me only when
he was dead. Now I will keep him! I am truly his widow. More truly
than you, my lady! for I love him and mourn for him, and call myself by
his dear name, and your ladyship does neither!'

'I _do_ love him!' cries Lady Caroline with flashing eyes, 'and I cling
to him, and won't let him go to such as you! How can I, when he is the
father of this poor babe that's coming to me? I must have him back
again! Milly, Milly, can't you pity and understand me, perverse girl
that you are, and the miserable plight that I am in? Oh, this
precipitancy--it is the ruin of women! Why did I not consider, and wait!
Come, give me back all that I have given you, and assure me you will
support me in confessing the truth!'

'Never, never!' persisted Milly, with woe-begone passionateness. 'Look
at this headstone! Look at my gown and bonnet of crape--this ring:
listen to the name they call me by! My character is worth as much to me
as yours is to you! After declaring my Love mine, myself his, taking his
name, making his death my own particular sorrow, how can I say it was not
so? No such dishonour for me! I will outswear you, my lady; and I shall
be believed. My story is so much the more likely that yours will be
thought false. But, O please, my lady, do not drive me to this! In pity
let me keep him!'

The poor nominal widow exhibited such anguish at a proposal which would
have been truly a bitter humiliation to her, that Lady Caroline was
warmed to pity in spite of her own condition.