By-and-by it will be once a fortnight, then once a month, and the
black-eyed rector will preach patience and resignation. Oh, it was a
master-stroke, clapping him in that asylum! All we have got to do now
is to let well alone. When she is over head and ears in love with
Angelo she will come to easy terms with us, and so I'll move across the
way. I shall never be happy till I live at Huntercombe, and administer
the estate."
The maid-servant brought him a note, and said it was from her mistress.
Bassett took it rather contemptuously, and said, "The little woman is
always in a fidget now when you come here. She is all for peace." He
read the letter. It ran thus:
"DEAREST RICHARD--I implore you to do nothing more to hurt Sir Charles.
It is wicked, and it is useless. God has had pity on Lady Bassett, and
have you pity on her too. Jane has just heard it from one of the
Huntercombe servants."
"What does she mean with her 'its'? Why, surely--Read it, you."
They looked at each other in doubt and amazement for some time. Then
Richard Bassett rushed upstairs, and had a few hasty words with his
wife.
She told him her news in plainer English, and renewed her mild
entreaties. He turned his back on her in the middle. He went out into
the nursery, and looked at his child.
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