XV.

WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT IT IN THE CLOSE.

When Miss Stanbury, in the Close at Exeter, was first told of the
arrangement that had been made at Nuncombe Putney, she said some very
hard words as to the thing that had been done. She was quite sure
that Mrs. Trevelyan was no better than she should be. Ladies who were
separated from their husbands never were any better than they should
be. And what was to be thought of any woman, who, when separated from
her husband, would put herself under the protection of such a Paladin
as Hugh Stanbury? She heard the tidings of course from Dorothy, and
spoke her mind even to Dorothy plainly enough; but it was to Martha
that she expressed herself with her fullest vehemence.

"We always knew," she said, "that my brother had married an
addle-pated, silly woman, one of the most unsuited to be the mistress
of a clergyman's house that ever a man set eyes on; but I didn't
think she'd allow herself to be led into such a stupid thing as
this."

"I don't suppose the lady has done anything amiss,--any more than
combing her husband's hair, and the like of that," said Martha.

"Don't tell me! Why, by their own story, she has got a lover."

"But he ain't to come after her down here, I suppose. And as for
lovers, ma'am, I'm told that the most of 'em have 'em up in London.
But it don't mean much, only just idle talking and gallivanting."

"When women can't keep themselves from idle talking with strange
gentlemen, they are very far gone on the road to the devil. That's
my notion. And that was everybody's notion a few years ago. But now,
what with divorce bills, and women's rights, and penny papers, and
false hair, and married women being just like giggling girls, and
giggling girls knowing just as much as married women, when a woman
has been married a year or two she begins to think whether she mayn't
have more fun for her money by living apart from her husband."

"Miss Dorothy says--"

"Oh, bother what Miss Dorothy says! Miss Dorothy only knows what
it has suited that scamp, her brother, to tell her. I understand
this woman has come away because of a lover; and if that's so, my
sister-in-law is very wrong to receive her. The temptation of the
Clock House has been too much for her. It's not my doing; that's
all."

That evening Miss Stanbury and Dorothy went out to tea at the house
of Mrs. MacHugh, and there the matter was very much discussed. The
family of the Trevelyans was known by nam