Neelie fell on her knees at the bedside and hid her face. In sheer despair of finding comfort and help anywhere else, she had cast herself impulsively on her mother's mercy; and this was how it had ended! "Oh, mamma," she pleaded, "you know I didn't mean to offend you! I couldn't help it when you spoke so of my father. Oh, do, do forgive me!"
Mrs. Milroy turned again on her pillow, and looked at her daughter vacantly. "Forgive you?" she repeated, with her mind still in the past, groping its way back darkly to the present.
"I beg your pardon, mamma--I beg your pardon on my knees. I am so unhappy; I do so want a little kindness! Won't you forgive me?"
"Wait a little," rejoined Mrs. Milroy. "Ah," she said, after an interval, "now I know! Forgive you? Yes; I'll forgive you on one condition." She lifted Neelie's head, and looked her searchingly in the face. "Tell me why you hate Miss Gwilt! You've a reason of your own for hating her, and you haven't confessed it yet."
Neelie's head dropped again. The burning color that she was hiding by hiding her face showed itself on her neck. Her mother saw it, and gave her time.
"Tell me," reiterated Mrs. Milroy, more gently, "why do you hate her?"
The answer came reluctantly, a word at a time, in fragments.
"Because she is trying--"
"Trying what?"
"Trying to make somebody who is much--"
"Much what?"
"Much too young for her--"
"Marry her?"
"Yes, mamma."
Breathlessly interested, Mrs. Milroy leaned forward, and twined her hand caressingly in her daughter's hair.
"Who is it, Neelie?" she asked, in a whisper.
"You will never say I told you, mamma?"
"Never! Who is it?"
"Mr. Armadale."
Mrs. Milroy leaned back on her pillow in dead silence. The plain betrayal of her daughter's first love, by her daughter's own lips, which would have absorbed the whole attention of other mothers, failed to occupy her for a moment. Her jealousy, distorting all things to fit its own conclusions, was busied in distorting what she had just heard. "A blind," she thought, "which has deceived my girl. It doesn't deceive me. Is Miss Gwilt likely to succeed?" she asked, aloud. "Does Mr. Armadale show any sort of interest in her?"
Neelie looked up at her mother for the first time. The hardest part of the confession was over now. She had revealed the truth about Miss Gwilt, and she had openly mentioned Allan's name.