"I am sure Bell cannot," replied Lady Wetheral, in alarm.
"Bell can, though! Bell, I charge you to reply to my question. Did not my mother induce me to run away with my brute? Speak truly."
"You cannot say so, Bell," said Lady Wetheral, bursting into tears.
"Bell, answer truly!" and Clara dragged her from her chair, to stand before her. Christobelle struggled to get free; but Clara grasped her with a force she could not resist. "Now, Bell, tell my mother the glaring truth!"
"I will not be questioned--I will not speak--let me go, Clara, let me go!"
"Go, then, stupid fool, too weak to utter the truth!" Clara released her grasp, and Christobelle fled to a distant chair, to remain a spectator of the ensuing scene.
"Clara," said her mother, reproachfully, "what could induce you to blame _me_, for your own impolitic conduct? If I wished to see you the wife of a man standing high in situation, I never counselled you to forget the proprieties of life."
"You held up Sir Foster to my view, as a match which you prayed for, and desired me never to relinquish," retorted Clara, with passionate energy. "You have married me to a heartless brute, and now you turn against me!"
"No, Clara, I do not deserve that reproach; your temper is too violent for your peace, or mine." Her mother wept.
"I know my temper is like the whirlwind, but you never complained of it, or subdued it! You only bid me conceal it when Lucy came here, till I was actually the wife of a monster! I cannot conceal it now, for it chafes under ill treatment. Oh, if you had but checked it in childhood, to meet this extremity!" Clara grew almost madly passionate and vehement; she threw herself upon her knees before her weeping mother. "If ever my misery exceeds my forbearance, it will be your doing, oh! hard-hearted mother! You have sold me to a wretch who will drive me to desperation, and you must answer for it! My temper is warm--I know it--but any other man would not have made me despise him so horribly. I have provoked him, and I _will_ provoke him; but it is your doing, for I did not understand a man's brutal nature. I thought they were all like my father!"
Lady Wetheral became almost convulsed with agitation. "Ring for Thompson--Thompson, Bell!" Alas! Thompson was no longer at Wetheral; but Christobelle was acquainted with her mother's ways, and brought the usual remedies to her hands. She did not avail herself of their use; her mind was too deeply occupied to heed them: she pushed her daughter aside, without being aware of the action.