"I included him; I said 'we,'" said Winthrop, challengingly.
Mr. Moore extended his long legs with a slightly uneasy movement. "I regret to say that I fear Mr. Winthrop is right; it would not be safe at present, even with Abram in the house. The river is no longer what it was" (he refrained from saying "your northern steamers have made the change;") "the people who live in the neighborhood are respectable, but the increased facilities for traffic have brought us dangerous characters."
"Of course you will go back to East Angels," Winthrop began.
"I think not. If I cannot stay here, I shall go north."
"North? Where?"
"There are plenty of places. There is my grandmother's old house in the country, where I lived when I was a child; it is closed now, but I could open it; I should like to see the old rooms once more." She spoke quietly, her manner was that she was taking it for granted that the clergyman knew everything, that Winthrop had told him all. She was a deserted wife, there was no need for any of them to go through the form of covering that up.
"That would be a perfectly crazy idea," began Winthrop. Then he stopped.
"We should be exceedingly sorry to lose you, Mrs. Harold—Penelope would be exceedingly sorry," said Mr. Moore, in his amiable voice. "I can understand that it would afford you much pleasure to revisit your childhood's home. But East Angels, too—after so long a stay there, may we not hope that it presents to you a friendly aspect?"
"I prefer to go north," Margaret answered.
Mr. Moore did not combat this decision; he did not, in truth, know quite what to advise just at present; it required thought. Here was a woman who had been cruelly outraged by the scandalous, by the incredibly abandoned conduct of the worst of husbands. She had no mother to go to (the clergyman felt this to be an unspeakable misfortune), but she was not a child; they could not dictate to her, she was a free agent. But women—women of refinement—were generally timid (he glanced at Margaret, and decided that she was timid also); she might talk a little about her house at the north, but probably it would end in her returning to East Angels after all.