He Knew He Was Right

will have no⁠—correspondence. But I will not remain here after what he has said to me, let him be ever so angry. I declare, as I think of it, it seems to me that no woman was ever so cruelly treated as I have been.” Then she wrote one further line to her husband.

Not having received any orders from you, and having promised Mrs. Stanbury that I would leave this house on Monday, I go with Nora to my aunt, Mrs. Outhouse, tomorrow.

E. T.

On the Sunday evening the four ladies drank tea together, and they all made an effort to be civil, and even affectionate, to each other. Mrs. Trevelyan had at last allowed Priscilla to explain how it had come to pass that she had told her brother that it would be better both for her mother and for herself that the existing arrangements should be brought to an end, and there had come to be an agreement between them that they should all part in amity. But the conversation on the Sunday evening was very difficult.

“I am sure we shall always think of you both with the greatest kindness,” said Mrs. Stanbury.

“As for me,” said Priscilla, “your being with us has been a delight that I cannot describe;⁠—only it has been wrong.”

“I know too well,” said Mrs. Trevelyan, “that in our present circumstances we are unable to carry delight with us anywhere.”

“You hardly understand what our life has been,” said Priscilla; “but the truth is that we had no right to receive you in such a house as this. It has not been our way of living, and it cannot continue to be so. It is not wonderful that people should talk of us. Had it been called your house, it might have been better.”

“And what will you do now?” asked Nora.

“Get out of this place as soon as we can. It is often hard to go back to the right path; but it may always be done⁠—or at least attempted.”

“It seems to me that I take misery with me wherever I go,” said Mrs. Trevelyan.

“My dear, it has not been your fault,” said Mrs. Stanbury.

“I do not like to blame my brother,” said Priscilla, “because he has done his best to be good to us all;⁠—and the punishment will fall heaviest upon him, because he must pay for it.”

“He should not be allowed to pay a shilling,” said Mrs. Trevelyan.

Then the morning came, and at seven o’clock the two sisters, with the nurse and child, started for Lessboro’ Station in Mrs. Crocket’s open carriage, the luggage having been sent on in a cart. There were many tears shed, and anyone looking at the party would have thought that very dear friends were being torn asunder.

“Mother,” said Priscilla, as soon as the parlour door was shut, and the two were alone together, “we must take care that we never are brought again into such a mistake as that. They who protect the injured should be strong themselves.”

XXX

Dorothy Makes Up Her Mind

It was true that most ill-natured things had been said at Lessboro’ and at Nuncombe Putney about Mrs. Stanbury and the visitors at the Clock House, and that these ill-natured things had spread themselves to Exeter. Mrs. Ellison of Lessboro’, who was not the most good-natured woman in the world, had told Mrs. Merton of Nuncombe that she had been told that the Colonel’s visit to the lady had been made by express arrangement between the Colonel and Mrs. Stanbury. Mrs. Merton, who was very good-natured, but not the wisest woman in the world, had declared that any such conduct on the part of Mrs. Stanbury was quite impossible. “What does it matter which it is⁠—Priscilla or her mother?” Mrs. Ellison had said. “These are the facts. Mrs. Trevelyan has been sent there to be out of the way of this Colonel; and the Colonel immediately comes down and sees her at the Clock House. But when people are very poor they do get driven to do almost anything.”

Mrs. Merton, not being very wise, had conceived it to be her duty to repeat this to Priscilla; and Mrs. Ellison, not being very good-natured, had conceived it to be hers to repeat it to Mrs. MacHugh at Exeter. And then Bozzle’s coming had become known.

“Yes, Mrs. MacHugh, a policeman in mufti down at Nuncombe! I wonder what our friend in the Close here will think about it! I have always said, you know, that if she wanted to keep things straight at Nuncombe, she should have opened her purse-strings.”

From all which it may be understood, that Priscilla Stanbury’s desire to go back to their old way of living had not been without reason.

It may be imagined that Miss Stanbury of the Close did not receive with equanimity the reports which reached her. And, of course, when she discussed the matter either with Martha or with Dorothy, she fell back upon her own early appreciation of the folly of the Clock House arrangement. Nevertheless, she had called Mrs. Ellison very bad names, when she learned from her friend Mrs. MacHugh what reports were being spread by the lady from Lessboro’.

“Mrs. Ellison! Yes; we all know Mrs. Ellison. The bitterest tongue in Devonshire, and the falsest! There are some people at Lessboro’ who would be well pleased if she paid her way there as well as those poor women do at Nuncombe. I don’t think much of what Mrs. Ellison says.”

“But it is bad about the policeman,” said Mrs. MacHugh.

“Of course it’s bad. It’s all bad. I’m not saying that it’s not bad. I’m glad I’ve got this other young woman out of it. It’s all that young man’s doing. If I had a son of my own, I’d sooner follow him to the grave than hear him call himself a Radical.”

Then, on a sudden, there came to the Close news that Mrs. Trevelyan and her sister were gone.