Laura did not respond to the kindness, but asked, looking perplexed, 'What have I said? Have I told it?'
'What you have given me reason to believe,' said Mrs. Edmonstone, trying to bring herself to speak it explicitly, 'that you think Philip is attached to you. You do not deny it. Let me know on what terms you stand.'
Without looking up, she murmured, 'If you would not force it from me at such a time.'
'Laura, it is for your own good. You are wretched now, my poor child; why not relieve yourself by telling all? If you have not acted openly, can you have any comfort till you have confessed? It may be a painful effort, but relief will come afterwards.'
'I have nothing to confess,' said Laura. 'There is no such thing as you think.'
'No engagement?'
'No.'
'Then what am I to understand by your exclamations?'
'It is no engagement,' repeated Laura. 'He would never have asked that without papa's consent. We are only bound by our own hearts.'
'And you have a secret understanding with him?'
'We have never written to each other; we have never dreamed of any intercourse that could be called clandestine. He would scorn it. He waited only for his promotion to declare it to papa.'
'And how long has it been declared to you?'
'Ever since the first summer Guy was here.'
'Three years!' exclaimed her mother. 'You have kept this from me three years! O Laura!'
'It was of no use to speak!' said Laura, faintly.
If she had looked up, she would have seen those words, 'no use,' cut her mother more deeply than all; but there was only coldness in the tone of the answer, 'No use to inform your parents, before you pledged your affections!'
'Indeed, mamma,' said Laura, 'I was sure that you knew his worth.'
'Worth! when he was teaching you to live in a course of insincerity? Your father will be deeply hurt.'
'Papa! Oh, you must not tell him! Now, I have betrayed him, indeed! Oh, my weakness!' and another paroxysm of tears came on.
'Laura, you seem to think you owe nothing to any one but Philip. You forget you are a daughter! that you have been keeping up a system of disobedience and concealment, of which I could not have believed a child of mine could be capable. O Laura, how you have abused our confidence!'
Laura was touched by the sorrow of her tone; and, throwing her arms round her neck, sobbed out, 'You will forgive me, only forgive him!'