At a little distance from the house door Daniel found Mrs. Clay waiting.
‘No good,’ he said cheerlessly.
‘She won’t go?’
‘No. But I’ll take you and the children, if you’ll come.’
Kate did not immediately reply. A grave disappointment showed itself in her face.
‘Can’t be helped,’ Daniel replied to her look. ‘I did my best’
Kate accepted his invitation, and they arranged the hour of meeting. As she approached the house to enter, flow looking ill-tempered, a woman of her acquaintance met her. After a few minutes’ conversation they walked away together.
Emma sat up till twelve o’clock. The thought on which she was brooding was not one to make the time go lightly; it was—how much and how various evil can be wrought by a single act of treachery. And the instance in her mind was more fruitful than her knowledge allowed her to perceive.
Kate appeared shortly after midnight. She had very red cheeks and very bright eyes, and her mood was quarrelsome. She sat down on the bed and began to talk of Daniel Dabbs, as she had often done already, in a maundering way. Emma kept silence; she was beginning to undress.
‘There’s a man with money,’ said Kate, her voice getting louder; ‘money, I tell you, and you’ve only to say a word. And you won’t even be civil to him. You’ve got no feeling; you don’t care for nobody but yourself. I’ll take the children and leave you to go your own way, that’s what I’ll do!’