mdale than any one else; but she found to
her surprise that an old friend is not always the person whom it is
easiest to make a confidant of: there was the barrier of remembered
communication under other circumstances--there was the dislike of
being pitied and informed by one who had been long wont to allow her
the superiority. For certain words of mysterious appropriateness that
Mrs. Plymdale let fall about her resolution never to turn her back on
her friends, convinced Mrs. Bulstrode that what had happened must be
some kind of misfortune, and instead of being able to say with her
native directness, "What is it that you have in your mind?" she found
herself anxious to get away before she had heard anything more
explicit. She began to have an agitating certainty that the misfortune
was something more than the mere loss of money, being keenly sensitive
to the fact that Selina now, just as Mrs. Hackbutt had done before,
avoided noticing what she said about her husband, as they would have
avoided noticing a personal blemish.

She said good-by with nervous haste, and told the coachman to drive to
Mr. Vincy's warehouse. In that short drive her dread gathered so much
force from the sense of darkness, that when she entered the private
counting-house where her brother sat at his desk, her knees trembled
and her usually florid face was deathly pale. Something of the same
effect was produced in him by the sight of her: he rose from his seat
to meet her, took her by the hand, and said, with his impulsive
rashness--

"God help you, Harriet! you know all."

That moment was perhaps worse than any which came after. It contained
that concentrated experience which in great crises of emotion reveals
the bias of a nature, and is prophetic of the ultimate act which will
end an intermediate struggle. Without that memory of Raffles she might
still have thought only of monetary ruin, but now along with her
brother's look and words there darted into her mind the idea of some
guilt in her husband--then, under the working of terror came the image
of her husband exposed to disgrace--and then, after an instant of
scorching shame in which she felt only the eyes of the world, with one
leap of her heart she was at his side in mournful but unreproaching
fellowship with shame and isolation. All this went on within her in a
mere flash of time--while she sank into the chair, and raised her eyes
to her brother, who stood over her. "I know nothi