"Never to come back, sir?"
"Never to come back."
"But she has not gone where she'll be cruelly treated; where she'll be ill-used?"
"No: she will be very kindly treated."
"I'm glad of that, sir; I beg your pardon for troubling you with the question, sir, but my lady was a kind mistress to me."
Luke's voice, husky and feeble, was heard within the little chamber at this period of the conversation, demanding angrily when "that gal would have done jawing;" upon which Phoebe put her finger to her lips, and led Mr. Audley back into the sick-room.
"I don't want you" said Mr. Marks, decisively, as his wife re-entered the chamber—"I don't want you; you've no call to hear what I've got to say—I only want Mr. Audley, and I wants to speak to him all alone, with none o' your sneakin' listenin' at doors, d'ye hear? so you may go down-stairs and keep there till you're wanted; and you may take mother—no, mother may stay, I shall want her presently."
The sick man's feeble hand pointed to the door, through which his wife departed very submissively.
"I've no wish to hear anything, Luke," she said, "but I hope you won't say anything against those that have been good and generous to you."
"I shall say what I like," answered Mr. Marks, fiercely, "and I'm not a-goin' to be ordered by you. You ain't the parson, as I've ever heerd of; nor the lawyer neither."