CHAPTER XIX.
UNCLE MARMY'S GATES.
When people really and thoroughly want to do right, and do not content themselves by saying they want to do so, I doubt if they are ever for long left in perplexity. Jacinth Mildmay had found it so. She had courageously dismissed all the specious arguments about 'troubling Lady Myrtle,' 'not going out of her way to dictate to her elders,' or 'interfering in their affairs,' and had simply and honestly done what her innermost conscience dictated. And now, as to how she was to act about and towards the Harpers, she was content to wait.
But Lady Myrtle did not keep her very long in suspense. She too had put aside every consideration but the one—what was her duty to the Harper family?—and she had found solid ground.
'My dear Jacinth,' she said, the second morning after the unexpected meeting of the former school-fellows, 'I have decided that it would be unkind and ungracious to keep Captain and Mrs Harper and their children at arm's length, if—if it would be any satisfaction to them to see me, as they like to think I have been of help to them. So I intend to drive out to St Rémi to call upon them.'