Five minutes later, she was walking alone, disconsolately, thinking of this new trouble that threatened her peace, for she felt instinctively that, in the last hour, she had made an enemy, to be shunned and dreaded during the rest of her stay in Waveland.
"Well, thank God!" she said fervently, "that I am at least safe. I am innocent of any wrong intent, and I know that I shall be upheld, now, as in every other trouble that has come to me, and in the end, find justification."
There was no one visible when she reached the house, but Mrs. Owen, who sat with her dumpling of a baby, on the door-steps.
"La!" she ejaculated, as Clemence came in sight, walking wearily enough, "what's the matter—be you sick?"
"No," said Clemence, sinking down beside her, "only tired."
"Well, you look as though you had seen a ghost, at the very least. There ain't much to you, any way, you give out the easiest of anybody I ever see. A good night's rest will help you, and you will be all right in the morning."
"I have got to walk another mile before I obtain it, though," said Clemence, rising. "I am going to spend to-morrow and Sunday with Mrs. Hardyng."
"No, be you?" reiterated Mrs. Owen. "Sakes alive you'll never stand it to walk way down there, and feeling tired out before you start. It will be dark too, before you get there. I wish Amos was here, and I'd send him along, too, but he went off somewhere, I don't know in what direction, and ain't even been in to his supper. That makes me think, you ain't had your's, neither. Better stay and let me get you a cup of tea?"
Clemence thanked her languidly, said her friends would probably have some waiting for her when she arrived, and bidding her good evening, passed out of the gate, and the slight form was soon lost to view in the deepening shadows of the night.
The young teacher's forebodings were soon to be realized. She was right. She had made an enemy of Mr. Owen, and he determined to make her feel it henceforward, by every means in his power. In his petty way, he was as particular about keeping up an outside appearance of respectability, as any aristocratic member of a rich city church might be to cover up their own glaring deficiencies. It would have ruined him as completely in his little circle, to have been found out in his underhand tricks, as though he had been of the consequence in other people's estimation that he was in his own. He had never, in all his life, been accustomed to mingle with but one class of women, and that the ignorant, ill-bred gossip-mongers of his own village. Consequently, he was in momentary fear of having his recent escapade brought to light, and becoming the laughing stock of the place, for having fallen in love with, and been snubbed by the pretty young school mistress.