people were to be shaken
and upset by every passing current of another person's thought, it
was, Edith said to herself a little pathetically, rather hard upon the
other person. Nobody can help their thoughts; and there was something
positively indecent in the uncanny insight that divined them. All the
same, Edith, confronted with the consequences of these movements of
the unfettered brain, was stung with compunction and considerable
shame. Horace would be furious when he knew; more furious with Edith
than Lucia. Therefore Edith was furious with Sophia Roots, the cause
of this disaster, who must have known that even if Lucia was too
weak-minded to refuse her most improper invitation, that invitation
ought never to have been given. Edith had her pride, the pride of all
the Jewdwines and the Hardens; and her private grievances gave way
before a family catastrophe. She did not want Lucia at Hampstead; but
at all cost to herself Lucia must be brought back to her cousin's
house before anybody knew that she had ever left it. It was even
better that Horace should marry her than that they should risk the
scandal of a mesalliance, or even-a passing acquaintance with a man
like Rickman. She would go and fetch Lucia now, this very evening.

She went as fast as a hansom could take her, and was shown up into
Rickman's room where she had the good luck to find Lucia alone. Lucia
was too tired to go out very much; and at that moment of her cousin's
entrance she was resting on Mr. Rickman's sofa. As the poor poet had
been so careful to remove the more telling tokens of his occupation,
Edith did not see that it was Mr. Rickman's room; and she was a little
surprised to find Sophia Roots so comfortably, not to say luxuriously
lodged.

She lost no time in delivering her soul, lest Sophia should pop in
upon them.

"Lu-_chee_-a," she said with emphasis, "I think you ought to have told
me."

"Told you what?"

"Why, that you hadn't anywhere to go to, instead of coming here."

"But I didn't come here because I hadn't anywhere to go to. I came
because I wanted to see something of Sophie after all these years."

"You could have seen Sophie at Hampstead. I would have asked her to
stay with you if I'd known you wanted her."

"That would have been very nice of you. But I'm afraid she wouldn't
have come. You see she can't leave her work at the Museum--ever, poor
thing."

"Oh. Then you don't see so much of Sophie after all?"

"Not as much