There was silence for a moment, and then Evan said, hesitatingly,—
“You don't think you could get him off, sir, do you? It will break Aunt Bessy's heart.”
“No, Evan, that is quite out of the question; your uncle is a fool, and must pay for his folly. I could do nothing for him if I wished it ever so much, and I am not sure that I do wish it at all. I have neither patience with nor pity for these men. It is the wife I am thinking of, as he ought to have been, before he ran his head against a wall. Something might be done for her, though I don't plainly see what. There, Evan, go off to bed, I will talk it over with Mr. Prescott.”
The result of the talk was that the friends drove down the following morning to Knightsbridge. Mrs. Holl—her honest face swollen and red from crying—was, as usual, washing. Her sister-in-law sat by the fire in an apathy of sorrow. She could cry no more, and, worn out by her grief, looked the image of despondency. When the young men entered she did not even look up or appear to notice their presence.
“Evan has been telling us, Mrs. Holl,” Frank began, “about this bad affair of your husband's brother. Of course nothing can be done in his case, but we came to ask what his wife intends to do.”
“Bless the poor creature,” Mrs. Holl said, “she ain't even thought about it. She is grieving too much over that husband of hers. There, I have no patience with him, though he be my John's brother. To think what a tidy chap he were, and what a steady good workman, before he took up with these Chartist goings-on.”
“Yes,” Bessy Holl said, speaking suddenly, and almost startling her listeners, for she had appeared lost in her own thoughts, as indeed she was, having probably but a vague idea of what was being said; “yes, Bill was that; there was not his equal, I've heard say, at planing and grooving, and moulding and tongueing. But there,” and here she broke into a sort of hysterical laughter, “it's the tongueing that's done it, and I knew it would all along. God forgive me!” she again broke out after a pause, “I don't know what I am talking about,” and then she began to cry quietly again, rocking herself to and fro.