“Then are you going?”
“As soon as I have seen this fever out, and can dispose of the things here. I have just been to Moy’s office to see about getting rid of the lease.”
“Is Mr. Moy come home?”
“Yes. Have you not heard?”
“What?—Not the fever?”
“No. Worse I should say. Gussie has gone off and got married to Harry Simmonds.”
“The man at the training stables?”
“Yes. They put up their banns at the Union at Brighton, and were married by the Registrar, then went off to Paris. They say it will kill her mother. The man is a scoundrel, who played Bob false, and won largely by that mare. And the girl has had the cheek to write to me,” said Mrs. Duncombe, warming into her old phraseology—“to me!—to thank me for opportunities of meeting, and to tell me she has followed up the teaching of last year.”
“What—the rights of women?”
“Ay. This is a civil marriage—not mocking her with antiquated servile vows,” she says. “Ah, well, it was my doing, I suppose. Clio Tallboys held forth in private, I believe, to poor Gussie, on theories that were mere talk in her, but which this poor girl has taken in earnest.”