“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Stirling. “You must have your hands full with her, Madame. Nobody had any idea of such a tragedy as this though I must say I have heard many wonder about the lady’s seclusion.”
“You see the necessity for it. However, we do not wish any talk on the subject.”
Slowly it came to Sophy’s comprehension that she had been treated like an insane woman, and her anger, though quiet, was of that kind that means action of some sort. She went to her room, but it was only to recall the wrong upon wrong, the insult upon insult she had received.
“I will go away from it all,” she said. “I will go away until Archie returns. I will not sleep another night under the same roof with that wicked woman. I will stay away till I die, ere I will do it.”
Usually she had little strength for much movement, but at this hour she felt no physical weakness. She made Leslie bring her a street costume of brown cloth, and she carefully put into her purse all the money she had. Then she ordered the carriage and rode as far as her aunt Kilgour’s. “Come for me in an hour, Thomas,” she said, and then she entered the shop.
“Aunt, I am come back to you. Will you let me stay with you till Archie gets home? I can bide yon dreadful old woman no longer.”
“Meaning Madame Braelands?”
“She is just beyond all things. This morning she has kept a letter that Archie wrote me; and she has told me a lot of lies in its place. I’m not able to thole her another hour.”
“I’ll tell you what, Sophy, Madame was here since I saw you, and she says you are neither to be guided nor endured I don’t know who to believe.”
“Oh! aunt, aunt, you know well I wouldn’t tell you a lie. I am so miserable! For God’s sake, take me in!”