Presently he looked up. "Suppose between us we do something for those two lunatics, Purcell? We can't let them starve, eh? Suppose we make a bit of a purse, and ship them off to the colonies? British Columbia, eh? That's the only place for them and their sort; and if they can be put on a decent footing there, they won't be in a hurry to come back again. Eh? What d'ye say? I'm willing, if you are. I have no great affection for these relatives of mine, but after all, they are relatives, and blood is thicker than water."
"Well—yes;" said Mr. Purcell, dubiously. He had been mentally putting off this evil day, uneasily conscious that it was bound to come.
"The general was the worst of the lot," proceeded his companion; "the most arrogant, conceited, humbugging, old swelled-head I ever came across. But he's gone, and the poor girls—well, I'm sorry for them. Sue is a good creature. I hardly know the younger ones,—but none of them have given me any trouble since I had to deal with them. Except for this scandal of Maud's of course—and anyhow that doesn't affect me. Well, what about her and her precious husband? You are bound to do something for him, I suppose?"
And it ended in Mr. Purcell's doing it.
Before Maud sailed, it was necessary for her to take leave of her sisters, and this was Leonore's worst time. Till then she had been shielded from the outer world by the illness which was impending when Maud described it as a chill contracted by going out in the damp, and the event which followed was generally accredited with developing the chill into something more serious,—but although Sue was obliged to ask a month's grace from Mr. Anthony Boldero, in order that her sister might be sufficiently recovered to run no risk from moving—(a request which he had sufficient goodness of heart to ignore when alleging that he had had no trouble about family arrangements)—Leo was now well enough to have no excuse for evading a farewell scene.
In respect to Maud she knew not what to think. Had any hint or rumour of the truth ever reached her, or could it have been mere coincidence that caused her flight to follow Paul's confession almost on the instant?
Had Paul's vaunted inflexibility broken down? Had he reconsidered his resolution?
Yet, if so, this must have become known; it was impossible that it should have been kept secret; and he, not Maud would have been accounted guilty.
"Where is Paul? What is Paul doing?" The faint bleat of a weak and wounded creature came incessantly from Leonore's pillow, all through the first long day that followed the esclandre. They hid it from her that Paul had gone.
Sue and Sybil would fain have kept him, yearning to breathe forth contrition and sympathy every hour, every moment—but he could not be prevailed upon. They thought he was too deeply hurt, too cruelly affronted,—and they thought they would not tell Leo.