'
She threw herself into his arms, and sobbed upon his breast. But sweet
as this assurance of his love was to her, she was not the less stricken
by shame at the thought of possible infamy in the past, a shameful
memory for ever brooding over her name in the present.
'Society never forgets a scandal,' she said: 'I have heard Maulevrier
say that.'
'Society has a long memory for other people's sins, but it only avenges
its own wrongs. Give the wicked fairy Society a bad dinner, or leave her
out of your invitation list for a ball, and she will twit you with the
crimes or the misfortunes of a remote ancestor--she will go about
talking of your grandfather the leper, or your great aunt who ran away
with her footman. But so long as the wicked fairy gets all she wants out
of you, she cares not a straw for the misdeeds of past generations.'
He spoke lightly, laughingly almost, and then he ordered the dogcart to
be brought round immediately, and he drove Mary across the hills towards
Langdale, to bring the colour back to her blanched cheeks.
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