"Then let her die!" said the Countess.

"Lady Lovel!"

"Let her die. It will be better. Oh, God! that I should be brought to
this. And what will you do, my lord? Do you mean to say that you will
abandon her?"

"I cannot ask her to be my wife again."

"What;--because she has said this in her sickness,--when she is half
delirious,--while she is dreaming of the words that man spoke to her?
Have you no more strength than that? Are you so poor a creature?"

"I think I have been a poor creature to ask her a second time at
all."

"No; not so. Your duty and mine are the same,--as should be hers. We
must forget ourselves while we save the family. Do not I bear all?
Have not I borne everything--contumely, solitude, ill words, poverty,
and now this girl's unkindness? But even yet I will not give it up.
Take the property,--as it is offered."

"I could not touch it."

"If not for you, then for your children. Take it all, so that we may
be the stronger. But do not abandon us now, if you are a man."

He would not stay to hear her further exhortations, but hurried away
from the house full of doubt and unhappiness.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

LADY ANNA'S OFFER.

Early in March Lady Anna was convalescent, but had not yet left the
house in Keppel Street,--and the confusion and dismay of the Countess
were greater than ever. Lady Anna had declared that she would not
leave England for the present. She was reminded that at any rate till
the 10th of May she was subject to her mother's control. But by this
time her mother's harshness to her had produced some corresponding
hardness in her. "Yes, mamma;--but I will not go abroad. Things
must be settled, and I am not well enough to go yet." The Countess
asserted that everything could be arranged abroad, that papers could
be sent after them, that Mr. Goffe could come out to them, and with
much show of authority persisted. She would do anything by which
she might be able to remove Lady Anna from the influence of Daniel
Thwaite at the time at which the girl would cease to be subject to
her. But in truth the girl had ceased to be subject to her. "No,
mamma, I will not go. If you will ask Serjeant Bluestone, or Sir
William Patterson, I am sure they will say that I ought not to be
made to go." There were some terrible scenes in which the mother was
driven almost to desperation. Lady Anna repeated to the Countess all
that she had said to Lord Lovel,--and swore to her mother with the
Bible