"Do you mean to say that you intend to turn me out, Mr. Maxfield?"
"I have given you a legal notice to quit, ma'am. You needn't call it turning you out, unless you like."
He had begun to move away, when Mrs. Errington exclaimed, "But I really don't comprehend this at all! What will Rhoda think of it?"
Maxfield stopped, hesitatingly, with his hand on the banisters at the top of the landing. "Rhoda?" said he gruffly. "Oh, Rhoda has nothing to say to it, one way or t'other."
"But I want to have something to say to her! I assure you it was a great disappointment to me not to find Rhoda here on my return. I'm very fond of her; and shall continue to be so, as long as she merits it. It is not her fault, poor girl, if—other people forget themselves."
Maxfield took his hand off the banisters and turned round. "Since you're so fond of Rhoda," he said, with a queer expression on his sour old face, "you'll be glad to know where she is, and the company she's in."
"I know that she is at the seaside with my friends, Mrs. and Miss Bodkin."
"She is at the seaside with her friends, Mrs. and Miss Bodkin. Miss Minnie is a real lady, and she understands how to treat Rhoda, and knows that the Lord has made a lady of Rhoda by natur'."
Mrs. Errington stared in utter astonishment. The suspicion began to form and strengthen itself in her mind that the old man was positively out of his senses. If so, his insanity had taken an extremely unpleasant turn for her.
"I really was not prepared for being turned out of my lodgings after all these years," she said, reverting to the point that most nearly touched herself.