"I could bear it," said Fleda, after a little interval, "if it wasn't for aunt Lucy and Hugh oh, that is the worst!"
"What about Hugh?" said aunt Miriam, soothingly.
"Oh, he does what he ought not to do, aunt Miriam, and there is no help for it and he did last summer, when we wanted men; and in the hot haying-time he used to work, I know, beyond his strength, and aunt Lucy and I did not know what to do with ourselves."
Fleda's head, which had been raised, sunk again and more heavily.
"Where was his father?" said Mrs. Plumfield.
"Oh, he was in the house he didn't know it he didn't think about it."
"Didn't think about it?"
"No oh, he didn't think Hugh was hurting himself, but he was; he showed it for weeks afterward. I have said what I ought not now," said Fleda, looking up, and seeming to check her tears, and the spring of them at once.
"So much security any woman has in a man without religion," said aunt Miriam, going back to her work. Fleda would have said something if she could; she was silent; she stood looking into the fire, while the tears seemed to come as it were by stealth, and ran down her face unregarded.
"Is Hugh not well?"