It was now the 15th of April, and there wanted but one short
fortnight to their marriage. The man had not the courage to jilt
her! She felt sure that he had not heart enough to do a deed of such
audacity. And her sister, too, was weak and a coward, and would
lack the power to stand on her legs and declare herself to be the
perpetrator of such villany. Her mother, as she knew well, would
always have preferred that her elder daughter should be the bride;
but her mother was not the woman to have the hardihood, now, in
the eleventh hour, to favour such an intrigue. Let her wish be
what it might, she would not be strong enough to carry through the
accomplishment of it. They would all know that that threat of hers
of setting Exeter on fire would be carried out after some fashion
that would not be inadequate to the occasion. A sister, a mother, a
promised lover, all false,--all so damnably, cruelly false! It was
impossible. No history, no novel of most sensational interest, no
wonderful villany that had ever been wrought into prose or poetry,
would have been equal to this. It was impossible. She told herself so
a score of times a day. And yet the circumstances were so terribly
suspicious! Mr. Gibson's conduct as a lover was simply disgraceful
to him as a man and a clergyman. He was full of excuses, which she
knew to be false. He would never come near her if he could help it.
When he was with her, he was as cold as an archbishop both in word
and in action. Nothing would tempt him to any outward manifestation
of affection. He would talk of nothing but the poor women of St.
Peter-cum-Pumpkin in the city, and the fraudulent idleness of a
certain colleague in the cathedral services, who was always shirking
his work. He made her no presents. He never walked with her. He was
always gloomy,--and he had indeed so behaved himself in public that
people were beginning to talk of "poor Mr. Gibson." And yet he could
meet Arabella on the sly in the lanes, and send notes to her by the
green-grocer's boy! Poor Mr. Gibson indeed! Let her once get him
well over the 29th of April, and the people of Exeter might talk
about poor Mr. Gibson if they pleased. And Bella's conduct was more
wonderful almost than that of Mr. Gibson. With all her cowardice, she
still held up her head,--held it perhaps a little higher than was
usual with her. And when that grievous accusation was made against
her,--made and repeated,--an accusation the very thought and sound