The precise words which had been spoken at the interview with him that day at Ivell Mrs.Millborne could not be induced to repeat; but thus far she admitted, that the estrangement was fundamentally owing to Mr.Millborne having sought her out and married her.
'And why did he seek you out--and why were you obliged to marry him ?' asked the distressed girl.

Then the evidences pieced themselves together in her acute mind, and, her colour gradually rising, she asked her mother if what they pointed to was indeed the fact.

Her mother admitted that it was.
A flush of mortification succeeded to the flush of shame upon the young woman's face.

How could a scrupulously correct clergyman and lover like Mr.Cope ask her to be his wife after this discovery of her irregular birth?
She covered her eyes with her hands in a silent despair.
In the presence of Mr.Millborne they at first suppressed their anguish.
But by and by their feelings got the better of them, and when he was asleep in his chair after dinner Mrs.Millborne's irritation broke out.
The embittered Frances joined her in reproaching the man who had come as the spectre to their intended feast of Hymen, and turned its promise to ghastly failure.
'Why were you so weak, mother, as to admit such an enemy to your house--one so obviously your evil genius--much less accept him as a husband, after so long?
If you had only told me all, I could have advised you better! But I suppose I have no right to reproach him, bitter as I feel, and even though he has blighted my life for ever!' 'Frances, I did hold out; I saw it was a mistake to have any more to say to a man who had been such an unmitigated curse to me! But he would not listen; he kept on about his conscience and mine, till I was bewildered, and said Yes!.

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