his
fellowship with his degraded friend than on chivalry itself.... And what
did his silence imply? Probably it was a defensive one; he imagined that
he, too, would be included in the stories that Miss Mapp proposed to
sow broadcast upon the fruitful fields of Tilling, and, indeed, when she
called to mind his bellowing about worm-casts, his general instability
of speech and equilibrium, she told herself that he had ample cause for
such a supposition. He, when his lights were out, was abetting,
assisting and perhaps joining Captain Puffin. When his window was alight
on alternate nights she made no doubt now that Captain Puffin was
performing a similar role. This had been going on for weeks under her
very nose, without her having the smallest suspicion of it.

Humiliated by all that had happened, and flattened in her own estimation
by the sense of her blindness, she penetrated to the kitchen and lit a
gas-ring to make herself some hot cocoa, which would at least comfort
her physical chatterings. There was a letter for Withers, slipped
sideways into its envelope, on the kitchen table, and mechanically she
opened and read it by the bluish flame of the burner. She had always
suspected Withers of having a young man, and here was proof of it. But
that he should be Mr. Hopkins of the fish-shop!

There is known to medical science a pleasant device known as a
counter-irritant. If the patient has an aching and rheumatic joint he is
counselled to put some hot burning application on the skin, which smarts
so agonizingly that the ache is quite extinguished. Metaphorically, Mr.
Hopkins was thermogene to Miss Mapp's outraged and aching consciousness,
and the smart occasioned by the knowledge that Withers must have
encouraged Mr. Hopkins (else he could scarcely have written a letter so
familiar and amorous), and thus be contemplating matrimony, relieved the
aching humiliation of all that had happened in the sea-mist. It shed a
new and lurid light on Withers, it made her mistress feel that she had
nourished a serpent in her bosom, to think that Withers was
contemplating so odious an act of selfishness as matrimony. It would be
necessary to find a new parlour-maid, and all the trouble connected with
that would not nearly be compensated for by being able to buy fish at a
lower rate. That was the least that Withers could do for her, to insist
that Mr. Hopkins should let her have dabs and plaice exceptionally
cheap. And ought she to tell W