I looked at her.  Of what use was concealment with this honest, loving heart?

“Yes,” I said; “I quite understand Emma.  You mean that I must never tell mamma anything about papa and—­Miss Reinhart?”

“Heaven bless the child!” cried the startled woman; “you could not have understood better or more had you been twenty years old.”

“It is love for mamma that teaches me that and everything else,” I answered.

“Ah, well, Miss Laura, since you speak frankly to me, so will I to you.  I would not say one word against Sir Roland for all the world.  Before she came he was the kindest and most devoted of husbands; since she has been here he has changed, there is no doubt of it—­terribly changed.  My lady does not know all that we know.  She thinks he is tired of always seeing her ill.  She only suspects about Miss Reinhart, she is not sure, and it must be the work of our lives to keep her from knowing the truth.”

“Emma,” I ventured to interrupt, “do you think it is the truth?”

“Yes, I fear so; and, Miss Laura, you must bear one thing in mind, if ever my lady knows it to be the truth it will kill her.  We must be most careful and always wear the brightest faces before her, and never let her know that anything is going wrong.”

“I will do it always,” I said, and then, looking up, I saw that my nurse was sad and grave.  “How will it end, Emma?” I asked.

“Only God knows, miss,” she replied.  “One thing, I hope, is this—­that my lady will never find it out.”

Something was telling upon my dear mother every day; she grew thinner and paler; the sweet smile, sweet always, grew fainter; her face flushed at the least sound.  Last year my father would have been devoured by anxiety; now his visits were short and cold.  If I said one word my mother would interrupt me.  “Hush! my Laura,” she would say, gently; “gentlemen are not at home in a sick-room.  Dear papa is all that is kind, but sitting long in one room is like imprisonment to him; I love him far too much to wish him to do it.”

Then I would take the opportunity of repeating some kind word that I had heard my father say of her.  But do as we would, the shadow fell deeper and darker every day.

The sense of degradation fell upon me with intolerable weight.  That our household was a mark for slander—­a subject of discussion, a blot on the neighborhood, I understood quite well; that my father was blamed and my mother pitied I knew also, and that Miss Reinhart was detested seemed equally clear.  She was very particular about going to church, and every Sunday morning, whether Sir Roland went or not, she drove over to the church and took me with her.  When I went with my mother I had always enjoyed this hour above all others.  All the people we knew crowded around us and greeted us so warmly—­every one had such pleasant things to say to us.  Now, if a child came near where we stood, silent and solitary, it was at once called back.  If Miss Reinhart felt it, she gave no indication of such feeling; only once—­when three ladies, on their way to their carriages, walked the whole round of the church-yard rather than cross the path on which she stood—­she laughed a cynical laugh that did not harmonize with the beauty of her face.