Maria hesitated. To her honourable mind, there appeared to be something like fraud in attempting such a thing. “Will you allow me just to ask Thomas Godolphin if I may do it?” she said.
Charlotte Pain began to think that Maria must be an idiot. “Ask Thomas Godolphin! You would get an answer! Why, Mrs. George, you know what Thomas Godolphin is—with his strait-laced principles! He would cut himself in two, rather than save a button, if it was not legally his to save. I believe that if by the stroke of a pen he could make it appear that Ashlydyat could not be touched, he wouldn’t make the stroke. Were you to go with such a question to Thomas Godolphin, he’d order you, in his brother’s name, not to put aside as much as a ten-and-sixpenny ring. You must do it without the knowledge of Thomas Godolphin.”
“Then I think I would rather not do it,” said Maria. “Thank you all the same, Mrs. Pain.”
Mrs. Pain shrugged her shoulders with a movement of contempt, threw off her hat, and drew her chair to the breakfast-table. Maria poured out some coffee, and helped her to what she chose to take.
“Are you sure—the people you speak of will be in the house to-day?” asked Maria.
“I suppose they will.”
“I wish George would come back?” involuntarily broke from Maria’s lips.
“He’d be a great simpleton if he did,” said Charlotte. “He’s safer where he is.”
“Safer from what?” quickly asked Maria.
“From bother. I should not come if I were George. I should let them fight the battle out without me. Mrs. George Godolphin,” added Charlotte, meaning to be good-natured, “you had better reconsider your resolve and let me save you a few things. Not a stick or stone will be left to you. This will be a dreadful failure, and you won’t be spared. They’ll take every trinket you possess, leaving you nothing but your wedding-ring.”