“Rise up,” he said, desperately, “for goodness’ sake, don’t make us both ridiculous. Sit down, and whatever it is, let us talk it over quietly. Oh, yes, yes, I am very sorry for you. I am shocked and distressed beyond words. Sit down rationally, for God’s sake, and tell me what it is. It is a matter, of course,” he cried, sharply, with some impatience, “that whatever I can do, I will do for you. There can be no need to implore me like this! of course I will do everything I can--of course. Mrs. Mowbray, sit down, for the love of heaven, and let me know what it is.”
She had risen painfully to her feet while he was speaking. Going down on your knees may be a picturesque thing, but getting up from them, especially in petticoats, and in a large shawl, is not a graceful operation at all, and this, notwithstanding her despair, poor Mrs. Mowbray was vaguely conscious of. She stumbled to her feet, her skirts tripping her up, the corners of her shawl getting in her way. The poor woman had begun to cry. It was wonderful that she had been able to restrain herself so long; but she was old enough to be aware that a woman’s tears are just as often exasperating as pathetic to a man, and had heroically restrained the impulse. But when she fell on her knees, she lost her self-control. That was begging the question altogether. She had given up her position as a tragic and dignified appellant. She was nothing but a poor suppliant now, at anybody’s mercy, quite broken down, and overmastered by her trouble. It did not matter to her any longer what anyone thought. The state of mind in which she had dared to tell the minister that he spoke like an old woman, was gone from her completely. He was like God, he could save her, if he would; she could not tell how, there was no reason in her hope, but if he only would, somehow he could, save her--that was all her thought.
“Now, tell me exactly how it is,” she heard him saying, confusedly, through the violent beating of her heart.
But what unfortunate, in her position, ever could tell exactly how such a thing was? She told him a long, broken, confused story, full of apology, and explanation, insisting chiefly upon the absence of any ill meaning on her part, or ill intention, and the fatality which had caught her, and compelled her actions, so often against her will. She had been led into this and that, it had been pressed upon her--even now she did not see how she could have escaped. And it was all for Frank’s sake: every step she had taken was for Frank’s sake, that he might want for nothing, that he might have everything the others had, and feel that everything about him--his home, his mother, his society--were such as a gentleman ought to have.