"Well, 'm, I don't know, 'm. You see, 'm, I thought the family mightn't like it——"
"That will do, Mary, that will do. I want no more beating about the bush. Tell me, yea or nay, has Captain Wiseman been noticing this girl?"
"Yes, 'm, he 'as, 'm; but I don't think——"
"Never mind what you think, you are sure of that fact?"
"Oh, yes, 'm, quite."
"Ah, thank you; then that'll do for the present," and she motioned to Crane to leave the room.
That worthy departed not quite satisfied. She had doubts as to whether her mistress liked to know the truth, doubted also if she had done Sarah as much harm as she wished to. But she showed none of these mental clouds in the servants' hall. There, in Sally's absence, she was triumphant, and the "said she's" and "said I's" with which the tale was embellished, served to emphasise the triumph which she indicated that the interview had been to her diplomatic skill. She only confessed to one regret. Mrs. Morgan had somehow cut the interview short, "just when I was a-goin' to tell her all about it."
Mrs. Morgan, however, did not need to be told all about it. She knew the habits of her brother, and, her interest once aroused, managed to put this and that together so well as to arrive before many minutes at a tolerably shrewd conclusion. "This, then," she said to herself, "is the secret of Captain Cecil's wonderful reform." That reflection at once brought her face to face with the question—Shall I or shall I not tell my mother? It was not a question so easily answered as it seemed. Mrs. Morgan was inclined to do it from her dislike of the Captain, who had always absorbed too much of his mother's attention—ought I to have said love?—for the good feelings of the rest of the family. But, then, this very preference made it difficult to decide. She might enrage her mother, and there were family money matters yet to settle, in the disposition of which a mother's displeasure might cause permanent changes. For these and other reasons, "too numerous to mention," Mrs. Morgan hesitated. She would wait on events, on her mother's moods and her own; so avoiding a decision.
That seemed easiest, and yet it proved the hardest course to Mrs. Morgan, who had quite a vulgar woman's delight in retailing scandal. Before a week was out she found it expedient to tell all. Her mother and she held a long conference in secret on the Friday after Sally had given up her place. What they said to each other will never be known; but one decision came of it that was at once acted upon. Sarah Wanless was dismissed that night by the orders of Lady Harriet, who sent her own maid with the message. "Jane," as she was called, delivered it with curt insolence, and at the same time flung a month's wages, which Lady Harriet had likewise sent, on the table, with a significant gesture, as if to say, "You are too unclean, Sally Wanless, to be touched by a superior person like me."
When Sarah went home, which she did as soon as her small box was packed up, and told her parents that she was dismissed, her father was so indignant that he wanted to send the extra weeks' wages back. His wife, however, persuaded him that it was better to let things alone. "The money," she said, "is her right, and can do us no harm; and Sally is well out of that den anyway." And Mrs. Wanless was right.