"She told me that you would do so."
"Lady Ushant would of course be delighted to have you if it could be arranged."
"Then Lady Ushant will be disappointed," said Mrs. Masters who had descended the stairs. "There has been something going on behind my back."
"I wrote to Lady Ushant," said Mary.
"I call that sly and deceitful;—very sly and very deceitful. If I know it you won't stir out of this house to go to Cheltenham. I wonder Lady Ushant would go to put you up in that way against those you're bound to obey."
"I thought Mrs. Masters had been told," said Reginald.
"Papa did know that I wrote," said Mary.
"Yes;—and in this way a conspiracy is to be made up in the house! If she goes to Cheltenham I won't stay here. You may tell Lady Ushant that I say that. I'm not going to be one thing one day and another another, and to be made a tool of all round." By this time Dolly and Kate had come down from the upper regions and were standing behind their mother. "What do you two do there, standing gaping like fools?" said the angry mother. "I suppose your father has gone over to the public-house again. That, miss, is what comes from your pigheadedness. Didn't I tell you that you were ruining everybody belonging to you?" Before all this was over Reginald Morton had escaped, feeling that he could do no good to either side by remaining a witness to such a scene. He must take some other opportunity of finding the attorney and of learning from him whether he intended that his daughter should be allowed to accept Lady Ushant's invitation.
Poor Mary as she shrunk into the house was nearly heartbroken. That such things should be at all was very dreadful, but that the scene should have taken place in the presence of Reginald Morton was an aggravation of the misery which nearly overwhelmed her. How could she make him understand whence had arisen her stepmother's anger and that she herself had been neither sly nor deceitful nor pigheaded?