very
way to fulfil my side, but in it I never contemplated a supervision
of his letters."
"Oh, indeed! And why couldn't you love him, pray? A finer young man
doesn't live for miles round," Mrs. Gurrage said, with great offence.
The other questions seemed in abeyance for the moment.
"We cannot force our likes and dislikes," I said.
"Well, you are married now, and part and parcel of him, and a wife's
duty is to keep her own husband from hussies--viscountesses or no they
can call themselves."
"What do you wish me to do?"
"Why, tax him with it when he comes home to-night. Let him see you
know and won't stand it. It's all your fault for not lovin' him, and
your duty now's to keep him in the path of virtue."
"May I say you informed me of his behavior? Because how otherwise
could I account for my knowledge? He would know I should never have
thought of opening or looking at his letters myself."
Mrs. Gurrage was not the least ashamed of having done this, to me,
most dishonorable thing. She could not see the matter from my point
of view.
I remember grandmamma once told me that servants and people of the
lower classes always think it is their right to read any one's letters
they come across, so I suppose my mother-in-law cannot help her
standard of honor being different to ours.
"You mustn't make mischief between my boy and me," she said. "You must
invent something--think of some other way."
"But I cannot tell a lie about it. I shall say you have received
disquieting information; I will not say how. Otherwise, I will not
speak to him at all about it."
Mrs. Gurrage burst into tears.
"There--it's breakin' my heart!" she sobbed, "and you don't care a
brass farthing!"
"Of course I care," I said, feebly.
* * * * *
Oh, grandmamma! For once you must have been wrong, and it would have
been better for me to have worked in the gutter! I wonder if you felt
that at the end. But we had given our word. Augustus held us to it,
and no Calincourt had ever broken his word.
By the afternoon post came a letter from Sir Antony Thornhirst. He had
returned from Scotland, he said, and hoped we would soon pay him our
promised visit.
It was a short note, dry and to the point, with nothing in it
unnecessary in the way of words. I do not know why I read it over
several times. His writing gave me comfort. I felt as if there was
some one human who would understand things.
*
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