"What do you mean, Suzanne?"
Now of a sudden she seemed to make up her mind to speak, for she turned and faced me boldly, saying: "I mean, mother, that I told the Englishman with the red hair, the agent, that all the fine tale you spun to him about Ralph was false, and that he was the man they came to find."
"You dared to do that, girl?" I said, then checked myself and added, "Well, what did the man say?"
"He said that he would ride on and bring the young lord back that I might talk with him, but they have not come."
"No, nor will they, Suzanne, for if they sought they did not wish to find, or at least the lawyer did not wish it, for he had too much at stake. Well, things have gone finely with you, seeing that your hands are clean from sin, and that Ralph still stays at your side."
"The sin of the parents is the sin of the child," she answered, and then of a sudden she took fire as it were, and fell upon me and beat me with her tongue; nor could I hold my own before this girl of eighteen, the truth being that she had right on her side, and I knew it. She told me that we were wicked plotters who, to pleasure ourselves, had stolen from Ralph everything except his life; and many other such hard sayings she threw at me till at last I could bear it no more, but gave her back word for word. Indeed, it would be difficult to say which had the best of that quarrel, for if Suzanne's tongue was the nimbler and her words were winged with truth, I had the weight of experience on my side and the custom of authority. At last, as she paused breathless, I cried out: "And for whose sake was all this done, you ungrateful chit, if it was not for your own?"
"If that was so, which is not altogether true," she answered, "it would have pleased me better, if, rather than make me a partner in this crime, and set me as bait to snare Ralph, you had left me to look after my own welfare."
"What!" I exclaimed, "are you then so shallow hearted that you were ready to bid farewell to him who for many years has been as your brother, and is now your affianced husband? You know well whatever he might promise now, that if once he had gone across the sea to England, you would have seen him no more."
"No," she answered, growing calm of a sudden, "I was not so prepared, for sooner would I die than lose Ralph."