our mother picked up her friends. And her
Sundays were a scandal--that I know."

Mrs. Peniston wheeled round suddenly. "You play cards on Sunday?"

Lily flushed with the recollection of certain rainy Sundays at Bellomont
and with the Dorsets.

"You're hard on me, Aunt Julia: I have never really cared for cards, but
a girl hates to be thought priggish and superior, and one drifts into
doing what the others do. I've had a dreadful lesson, and if you'll help
me out this time I promise you--"

Mrs. Peniston raised her hand warningly. "You needn't make any promises:
it's unnecessary. When I offered you a home I didn't undertake to pay
your gambling debts."

"Aunt Julia! You don't mean that you won't help me?"

"I shall certainly not do anything to give the impression that I
countenance your behaviour. If you really owe your dress-maker, I will
settle with her--beyond that I recognize no obligation to assume your
debts."

Lily had risen, and stood pale and quivering before her aunt. Pride
stormed in her, but humiliation forced the cry from her lips: "Aunt
Julia, I shall be disgraced--I--" But she could go no farther. If her
aunt turned such a stony ear to the fiction of the gambling debts, in
what spirit would she receive the terrible avowal of the truth?

"I consider that you ARE disgraced, Lily: disgraced by your conduct far
more than by its results. You say your friends have persuaded you to play
cards with them; well, they may as well learn a lesson too. They can
probably afford to lose a little money--and at any rate, I am not going
to waste any of mine in paying them. And now I must ask you to leave
me--this scene has been extremely painful, and I have my own health to
consider. Draw down the blinds, please; and tell Jennings I will see no
one this afternoon but Grace Stepney."

Lily went up to her own room and bolted the door. She was trembling with
fear and anger--the rush of the furies' wings was in her ears. She walked
up and down the room with blind irregular steps. The last door of escape
was closed--she felt herself shut in with her dishonour.

Suddenly her wild pacing brought her before the clock on the
chimney-piece. Its hands stood at half-past three, and she remembered
that Selden was to come to her at four. She had meant to put him off with
a word--but now her heart leaped at the thought of seeing him. Was there
not a promise of rescue in his love? As she had lain at Gerty's side the
night befo