At Cross Hall he found Canon Holdenough's wife and the Canon. At the moment of his entrance old Lady Brotherton was talking to the clergyman, and Lady Alice was closeted in a corner with her sister Sarah. "I would advise you to go just as though you had heard nothing from us," Lady Sarah had said. "Of course he would be readier to quarrel with me than with any one. For mamma's sake I would go away for a time if I had anywhere to go to."
"Come to us," Lady Alice had said. But Lady Sarah had declared that she would be as much in the way at Brotherton as at Cross Hall, and had then gone on to explain that it was Lady Alice's duty to call on her sister-in-law, and that she must do so,—facing the consequences whatever they might be. "Of course mamma could not go till he had been here," Lady Sarah added; "and now he has told mamma not to go at all. But that is nothing to you."
"I have just come from the house," said the Dean.
"Did you see him?" asked the old woman with awe.
"Yes; I saw him."
"Well!"
"I must say that he was not very civil to me, and that I suppose I have seen all of him that I shall see."
"It is only his manner," said her ladyship.
"An unfortunate manner, surely."
"Poor Brotherton!"