Miss Corny did not believe her own ears. “Go back to my own home!” she exclaimed. “I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall stop at East Lynne. What’s to hinder me?”
Mr. Carlyle shook his head. “It cannot be,” he said, in a low, decisive tone.
“Who says so?” she sharply asked.
“I do. Have you forgotten that night—when she went away—the words spoken by Joyce? Cornelia, whether they were true or false, I will not subject another to the chance.”
She did not answer. Her lips parted and closed again. Somehow, Miss Carlyle could not bear to be reminded of that revelation of Joyce’s; it subdued even her.
“I cast no reflection upon you,” hastily continued Mr. Carlyle. “You have been a mistress of a house for many years, and you naturally look to be so; it is right you should. But two mistresses in a house do not answer, Cornelia; they never did, and they never will.”
“Why did you not give me so much of your sentiments when I first came to East Lynne?” she burst forth. “I hate hypocrisy.”
“They were not my sentiments then; I possessed none. I was ignorant upon the subject as I was upon many others. Experience has come to me since.”
“You will not find a better mistress of a house than I have made you,” she resentfully spoke.
“I do not look for it. The tenants leave your house in March, do they not?”