xact nature of the projected
commemoration, had soon become interested in the amusing details of
their task, and excited by the notice they received. They would not for
the world have missed their afternoons at Miss Hatchard's, and, while
they cut out and sewed and draped and pasted, their tongues kept up such
an accompaniment to the sewing-machine that Charity's silence sheltered
itself unperceived under their chatter.

In spirit she was still almost unconscious of the pleasant stir about
her. Since her return to the red house, on the evening of the day when
Harney had overtaken her on her way to the Mountain, she had lived at
North Dormer as if she were suspended in the void. She had come back
there because Harney, after appearing to agree to the impossibility of
her doing so, had ended by persuading her that any other course would
be madness. She had nothing further to fear from Mr. Royall. Of this
she had declared herself sure, though she had failed to add, in his
exoneration, that he had twice offered to make her his wife. Her hatred
of him made it impossible, at the moment, for her to say anything that
might partly excuse him in Harney's eyes.

Harney, however, once satisfied of her security, had found plenty of
reasons for urging her to return. The first, and the most unanswerable,
was that she had nowhere else to go. But the one on which he laid the
greatest stress was that flight would be equivalent to avowal. If--as
was almost inevitable--rumours of the scandalous scene at Nettleton
should reach North Dormer, how else would her disappearance be
interpreted? Her guardian had publicly taken away her character, and she
immediately vanished from his house. Seekers after motives could hardly
fail to draw an unkind conclusion. But if she came back at once, and
was seen leading her usual life, the incident was reduced to its true
proportions, as the outbreak of a drunken old man furious at being
surprised in disreputable company. People would say that Mr. Royall had
insulted his ward to justify himself, and the sordid tale would fall
into its place in the chronicle of his obscure debaucheries.

Charity saw the force of the argument; but if she acquiesced it was
not so much because of that as because it was Harney's wish. Since that
evening in the deserted house she could imagine no reason for doing or
not doing anything except the fact that Harney wished or did not wish
it. All her tossing contradictory impulses we