“Jabez Clegg!” remonstrated Mr. Ashton, with wide-open eyes.
“Have you any other reason to be dissatisfied with present arrangements?” asked Mrs. Ashton stiffly.
“Oh! Mrs. Ashton, how can I have? This house has been my home for years, and such a home as rarely falls to the lot of the fatherless. To you, my benefactors, I owe everything—almost myself; and I should ill repay your uniform kindness by remaining to create discord.”
“If your only desire to remove is to gratify Miss Ashton’s whims, you will oblige me, Mr. Clegg, by remaining,” replied Mrs. Ashton, with grave decision; whilst Mr. Ashton, looking the very picture of consternation, laid his hand upon the young man’s sleeve, and said slowly—
“My lad, you have been one of the household for many years; do not be the first to make a breach in the family. If the child of our blood and our affections goes forth to strangers wilfully, and repudiates us, do not let the son of our adoption leave us to lament her loss in solitude.”
This was strong language, but Mrs. Ashton did not gainsay it, and Mr. Clegg could not longer press the point though his own pain was intensified by the fear of adding to the distress of Augusta, who, he was confident, regarded him as an interloper and a mischief-maker.
Little had been seen of Ellen since the return from Carr Cottage. A message despatched by Mrs. Ashton to her sister, in her dilemma, was answered by another to pray them to “excuse Miss Chadwick, who was not well enough to go out.”
This somewhat disconcerted Mrs. Ashton, who, more alarmed than she would admit, and disturbed by the restless uneasiness of her husband, had looked for Ellen to act as a mediator without any compromise of her own dignity.
At the close of the second day, as Augusta pertinaciously refused to open the door, at the instance of Jabez the lock was forced; and even then a barrier of chairs and boxes had to be thrust back by sheer strength. She was exhausted from want of food, but her will was indomitable, and neither her father’s entreaties, nor her mother’s commands could induce her to partake of the viands spread before her.
Jabez was in agony. Delicacy and her obvious dislike had kept him from intruding upon her privacy, but as hour after hour was added to the night, and Augusta persistently dashed aside the food placed to her lips, he joined his prayers to those of her father; and neither availing, rushed out of the house, and in less than a quarter of an hour returned with Dr. Hull. He was not a man to stand any nonsense.