“I can’t see that there is anything worth making a fuss about,” he observed, carelessly. “If the room is wanted, you can easily find another that will be just as comfortable.”
In fact, he dismissed the matter as too trivial to worry about. The mischief lay deeper than he either knew or cared, and one encroachment followed another until the daughter of the house decided that her room was preferable to her company. The immediate result of this conviction was action on her part. She quitted the home she idolised, and it was surmised by her father and his wife that she had eloped with Pearce Churchill. Mrs Calmour did her best to encourage this supposition, and to fan the already unreasonable anger of the man whose money she coveted for herself.
Her schemes prospered to perfection. Mr Calmour swore never to look upon his daughter again, or to allow her to touch a farthing of his money.
“Her good-for-nothing husband may keep her,” he observed, callously. “She didn’t know when she was well off, and as she has chosen to make her own bed, she may lie upon it.”
But the poor girl had not married her cousin after all, although he was eager that she should become his wife, even though the fortune she once expected to inherit was probably alienated from her for ever. When Ada discovered that her lover’s income was totally inadequate for even one, she declined to add to his responsibilities, and went into the world to earn her own living.
“And you must not write to me for twelve months,” she said firmly but tearfully. “I love you dearly, Pearce; but you shall not sacrifice yourself to a penniless wife until time and absence have tested your affection. You need not fear for me. I shall get on well enough. And in twelve months I will write to you, and will gladly marry you if you still want me.”
All Pearce Churchill’s arguments in favour of an immediate marriage were in vain, and when Mr Calmour died quite suddenly, three months after his daughter’s disappearance, none knew where to find her. Probably the misguided man had been visited by compunctious qualms of conscience concerning his treatment of his own child, for his will, as read at the funeral, savoured of a half-hearted attempt to saddle Fate with the responsibility of deciding whether his wife or his daughter should inherit his wealth. Said will was fantastic to a ridiculous degree, and provoked the indignation of all the old friends of the family, who estimated Mrs Calmour at her true value, and set her down as the unscrupulous, scheming adventuress she really was.
Some even went so far as to hint that Mr Calmour, who was in the prime of life, and had always been a healthy man, would have been alive still, if he had been further removed from his wife’s influence. But hints and suspicions are more easily indulged in than open accusations, and many a tragedy remains unexposed because nobody likes to be the initiative accuser.
Thus, though many black glances were levelled at the newly made widow, she was allowed to pursue the even tenor of her way unmolested, in spite of the fact that her badly disguised rage at the gist of her husband’s will increased the distrust with which she was already regarded.
Mr Calmour had been enlightened as to the true state of affairs with regard to his daughter, at least as far as his nephew could enlighten him, and had become aware that she was struggling unaided to earn a livelihood which he could have given her without missing the money.