“I wish I could believe that, Miss Derno. Oh! I wish I could,” said Captain Stondon. And the poor old man, utterly broken down by the absence of the son and the reproaches of the mother, burst into tears.
At this period Phemie took the most decided step of her married life. She forbade Mrs. Montague Stondon the house.
“You shall not come here,” she said, “and speak to my husband as you do. We are as sorry about Basil as even you can be.” For a moment she faltered. “We did all we could for him while he was in England; and if anything has happened to him, Captain Stondon is not the one to blame for it. He cannot bear these reproaches. He is not able to leave his room to-day; and the doctor says he must be kept perfectly quiet, and free from excitement.”
Then Mrs. Montague Stondon broke out. She denounced Phemie as a scheming adventuress; she spoke of Captain Stondon as a cold-blooded murderer. She declared Miss Derno was a disappointed woman, and that Phemie had wanted to catch Basil for her cousin Helen; failing in which object, and angry at having no children to succeed to the estate, she sent him abroad to die.
She showed how grievously the idea of losing Marshlands had affected her. She declared the only reason Phemie wished to prolong Captain Stondon’s life was because at his death she would cease to be a person of consequence.
To all of which Mrs. Stondon listened quietly, till the speaker was quite exhausted, when she took her by the hand and led her towards the door.
“I am not going to put any indignity on Basil’s mother,” she said; “but as no person shall have a chance of uttering such words before me twice, I mean to see you to your carriage myself, and must beg you never to enter the gates of Marshlands again so long as I am mistress here.”
A servant was standing in the hall as the pair passed out together—and so Mrs. Montague had to content herself with hissing in Phemie’s ear—“I hope I shall live to see you a beggar, to see you back in the mud he picked you out of.”
“You are very kind,” Phemie answered, aloud, and she remained at the hall door watching the carriage till it disappeared from sight. Then she turned away and walked slowly up the stairs, and along the wide passages, and entered the room where her husband was lying in bed, with the doctor seated beside him.
“That letter, dear,” he murmured; “that letter we had this morning. I am afraid I shall not be able to make the inquiries for some time.”