"Well, you are married now, and part and parcel of him, and a wife's duty is to keep her own husband from hussies—viscountesses or no they can call themselves."
"What do you wish me to do?"
"Why, tax him with it when he comes home to-night. Let him see you know and won't stand it. It's all your fault for not lovin' him, and your duty now's to keep him in the path of virtue."
"May I say you informed me of his behavior? Because how otherwise could I account for my knowledge? He would know I should never have thought of opening or looking at his letters myself."
Mrs. Gurrage was not the least ashamed of having done this, to me, most dishonorable thing. She could not see the matter from my point of view.
I remember grandmamma once told me that servants and people of the lower classes always think it is their right to read any one's letters they come across, so I suppose my mother-in-law cannot help her standard of honor being different to ours.
"You mustn't make mischief between my boy and me," she said. "You must invent something—think of some other way."
"But I cannot tell a lie about it. I shall say you have received disquieting information; I will not say how. Otherwise, I will not speak to him at all about it."
Mrs. Gurrage burst into tears.
"There—it's breakin' my heart!" she sobbed, "and you don't care a brass farthing!"