! And now when she's run away back 'ome,
and when I take the trouble to go arfter her, I'm to be insulted and
abused as never was! Oh, they're a nice respectable family, those Rudds!
Mrs Rudd--that's Mrs Yule's sister--what a nice, polite-spoken lady she
is, to be sure? If I was to repeat the language--but there, I wouldn't
lower myself. And I've been a brute of a mistress; I ill-use my
servants, and I don't give 'em enough to eat, and I pay 'em worse than
any woman in London! That's what I've learnt about myself by going to
Perker Street, 'Olloway. And when I come here to ask Mrs Yule what she
means by recommending such a creature, from such a 'ome, I get insulted
by her gentleman husband.'

Yule was livid with rage, but the extremity of his scorn withheld him
from utterance of what he felt.

'As I said, all this has nothing to do with me. I will let Mrs Yule know
that you have called. I have no more time to spare.'

Mrs Goby repeated at still greater length the details of her grievance,
but long before she had finished Yule was sitting again at his desk in
ostentatious disregard of her. Finally, the exasperated woman flung open
the door, railed in a loud voice along the passage, and left the house
with an alarming crash.

It was not long before Mrs Yule returned. Before taking off her things,
she went down into the kitchen with certain purchases, and there she
learnt from the servant what had happened during her absence. Fear and
trembling possessed her--the sick, faint dread always excited by her
husband's wrath--but she felt obliged to go at once to the study. The
scene that took place there was one of ignoble violence on Yule's part,
and, on that of his wife, of terrified self-accusation, changing at
length to dolorous resentment of the harshness with which she was
treated. When it was over, Yule took his hat and went out.

He did not return for the mid-day meal, and when Marian, late in the
afternoon, came back from the Museum, he was still absent.

Not finding her mother in the parlour, Marian called at the head of the
kitchen stairs. The servant answered, saying that Mrs Yule was up in
her bedroom, and that she didn't seem well. Marian at once went up and
knocked at the bedroom door. In a moment or two her mother came out,
showing a face of tearful misery.

'What is it, mother? What's the matter?'

They went into Marian's room, where Mrs Yule gave free utterance to her
lamentations.

'I can't put up w