3. FROM NINE TO TEN O'CLOCK P.M.The next presentation is the interior of the Old House on the
evening of the preceding section. The steward was sitting by his
parlour fire, and had been reading the letter arrived from the
rectory. Opposite to him sat the woman known to the village and
neighbourhood as Mrs. Manston.
'Things are looking desperate with us,' he said gloomily. His
gloom was not that of the hypochondriac, but the legitimate gloom
which has its origin in a syllogism. As he uttered the words he
handed the letter to her.
'I almost expected some such news as this,' she replied, in a
tone of much greater indifference. 'I knew suspicion lurked in the
eyes of that young man who stared at me so in the church path: I
could have sworn it.'
Manston did not answer for some time
