Poor Mr. Prendergast humbly apologized for his betrayal; but had not Owen been told of the engagement?
Oh, dear, no! He was in no state for fresh agitations. Indeed, with him, a miserable, helpless cripple, Lucy did not
see how she could go on as before. She could not desert him—oh, no!—she must work for him and his child.
‘Work! Why, Cilla, you have not strength for it.’
‘I am quite well. I have strength for anything now I have some one to work for. Nothing hurts me but loneliness.’
‘Folly, child! The same home that receives you will receive them.’
‘Nonsense! As if I could throw such a dead weight on any one’s hands!’
‘Not on any one’s,’ said Mr. Prendergast. ‘But I see how it is, Cilla; you have changed your mind.’
‘No,’ said Lucilla, with an outbreak of her old impatience; ‘but you men are so selfish! Bothering me about proclaiming all this nonsense, just when my brother is come home in this wretched state! After all, he was my brother before anything else, and I have a right to consider him first!’
‘Then, Cilla, you shall be bothered no more,’ said Mr. Prendergast, rising. ‘If you want me, well and good—you know where to find your old friend; if not, and you can’t make up your mind to it, why, then we are as we were in old times. Good-bye, my dear; I won’t fret you any more.’