'Willie knows right well. I told him how it would be if he went on about Cuthbert Franklyn any longer, talking to Hildred and scaring her. There's the girl been crying all night: Phillis heard her. But there'll be an end to it all, for I am going to send her away to her aunt in Morechester. She'll be left in peace there, at all events.'
Martha kept her word. Prayers and promises availed nothing. She sent Hildred to Morechester, to be shut up all through the bright summer in a hot town, in rooms above a shop. Her aunt, a good woman enough I believe, lived in one of those quaint old houses in the market-place, that had a carved wooden gallery running round it, and a high-pitched roof with a gilt weathercock at the top.
They told me Hildred was content to be there. On market days I used to see her standing in the old-fashioned bow-window, watching the busy scene round the Cross—watching perhaps, I thought, for me. It was the moment in each week I lived for. They would not let me go and see her.
She always had a bright colour, and a smile when I caught sight of her, but even from that distance I could see that she was growing thin.
They left her there for many months, poor child, till long after the summer days were gone. Late in autumn Matt Clifford's heart smote him at her wistful face, as he was bidding her good-bye one day, and he brought her home.
Martha talked and scolded, blamed Hildred for looking ill, Matt for giving in to her when it was not for her real good, and me, for meaning, as of course I did, to begin again doing all I could towards wearing Hildred into her grave.
Clifford—I had never liked him so well—came and spoke to me himself, in a manly, straightforward way, and with a fairness that gave double weight to all his words. Hildred had no one but him and his wife, belonging to her, he said. He stood in her father's place, and wished to do his duty by her the same as if she was one of his own children. If he spoke now it was because he thought that it was right he should, not because he cared to meddle and make; 'as you know well enough, Will,' he added with a half smile, 'seeing how many years I have let things be and have said nothing either way.' 'He was sure,' he went on, 'that I had meant to do rightly by Hildred and Cuthbert both. As far as he could see, I could have done nothing but wait to see if Cuthbert would come home. When a man gave his word, why, he must stick to it. But there was an end to everything: the living ought not to suffer for the dead. To his mind it was time now to think a little more of Hildred. 'For betwixt you both,' said Clifford, looking up again with his grave smile, 'she is getting wasted to a shadow. What with Cuthbert's going away, and never sending a word home, and with your not letting her believe—as they tell me—that Cuthbert is dead and gone, what with all this, there'll be naught left of her soon. I tell you where it is, Will: I want to have her forget; if he's dead, fretting won't bring him back; if so be as he's alive, you'll never make me think he couldn't have sent so much as a line home to his sweetheart in these many years. I don't want to think so badly of him,' said Clifford 'as that he's living still.'
'Did you never think he might have been made prisoner?' I asked.
'I never think anything, but that he was killed, as David Moore told us. Hearing that, you are set free concerning any word you passed to him. That being so, I ask you now what you are going to do.'
I was silent.