Mrs. Bent was unable to stir his decision: since the fatal night connected with the Friar's Keep, she could but notice that John had altered. He was more silent than of yore; yielded to her less, and maintained his own will better: which was, of course, not an agreeable change to Mrs. Bent.
They were in their ordinary room, facing the sea. The door stood open as usual, but a screen of two folds now intervened between the fire-place and the draught. John sat in his carved elbow-chair; Mrs. Bent stood by, folding clothes at the table; which was drawn near the fire from its place under the window.
"I tell you, then, John Bent, you might be taken up and prosecuted for it," she said, sprinkling the linen so vigorously that some splashes went on his face. "Keeping other people's letters!"
"The letters are directed here, to my house, Dorothy woman; and I shall keep them till some proper person turns up to receive them," was John's answer, delivered without irritation as he wiped his face with his pocket-handkerchief.
"The proper person is Mr. Castlemaine. Just take your elbow away: you'll be upsetting the basin. He is the young man's uncle."
"Now look here, wife. You've said that before, and once for all I tell you I'll not do it. Mr. Castlemaine is the last person in the world I'd hand the letters to. What would he do with them!--Put 'em in the fire, I dare be bound. If, as I believe; I believe it to my very heart; Mr. Castlemaine took his nephew's life that night in the Friar's Keep----"
"Hist!" said Mrs. Bent, the rosy colour on her face fading as a sound caught her ear; "hist, man!"
And, for once, more alarmed than angry, she looked behind the screen, and found herself face to face with Ethel Reene.
"Mercy be good to us!" she exclaimed, seeing by the young lady's white face that they had been overheard. And, scarcely knowing what she did, she dragged the horror-stricken girl round to the hearth, before John.
"Now you've done it!" she cried, turning upon him. "You'd better pack up and be off to jail: for if Miss Ethel tells the Master of Greylands what she has heard, he'll put you there."