“This letter was not given to our father-in-law. He never knew the truth about your marriage. I can but ask you to forgive,” she said, with a bitter proud humility. “I am afraid that your husband’s errors were not put in the best light before his father.”
“My husband’s errors! How dare any one say he had errors! If he had, I will never hear a whisper of them now! now that I have lost him,” sobbed Ellen Kingsworth, while Mary stood silenced by a view of wifely duty so unlike her own.
Ellen turned away from her with manifest suspicion and dislike, and Mary having relieved her conscience was too much absorbed in her own shame and dread—in the terrible fear of she knew not what, to show sufficient tenderness to overcome the repulsion.
In a day or two, however, Mrs James Kingsworth’s mother, Mrs Bury, arrived on the scene: a gentle ladylike woman, who had worked hard at school-keeping for her living, and who avowed that her daughter’s secret marriage had been made without her knowledge, and afterwards concealed greatly against her will.
She expressed much less surprise than Ellen had done at the disinheritance of her son-in-law, of whom she evidently had formed no good opinion, refused at first with some quiet pride the offers of assistance for Emberance’s education, saying that she and her daughter were far from being unable to support her; but perceiving how earnestly and sincerely the Kingsworths wished to make this arrangement, she replied that it was an acknowledgment of her daughter’s position, and as such she accepted the allowance offered—a small one—for the affairs of Kingsworth had been much hampered by James’ debts. Katharine Kingsworth must owe to her long minority, or to her mother’s wealth, the means of supporting her inheritance.
These matters settled, and the sad double funeral over, Mrs James Kingsworth and her mother and child went away from Kingsworth, doubtless with much sense of injury and disappointment; while Mary was left, feeling as if a burden had been laid upon her, that would crush the brightness out of her life for ever—the brightness, not the energy nor the resolution. She looked forward through the years, and set one aim before her—to undo the injustice which she believed her husband to have done, and to free her child from her unlawful possessions.
How she succeeded, the sequel will tell.