"Child," said Mrs. Gaunt, "you have done me a great service, and my husband too; for if this dastardly act had been done in his name, he would soon have been heartily ashamed of it, and deplored it. Such services can never be quite repaid; but you will find a purse in that drawer with five guineas; it is yours; and my lavender silk dress, be pleased to wear that about me, to remind me of the good office you have done me. And now, all you can do for me is to leave me; for I am very, very unhappy."
Ryder retired with the spoil, and Mrs. Gaunt leaned her head over her chair, and cried without stint.
After this, no angry words passed between Mr. and Mrs. Gaunt; but something worse, a settled coolness, sprung up.
As for Griffith, his cook kept her place, and the priest came no more to the Castle; so, having outwardly gained the day, he was ready to forget and forgive; but Kate, though she would not let her servant speak ill of Griffith, was deeply indignant and disgusted with him. She met his advances with such a stern coldness, that he turned sulky and bitter in his turn.
Husband and wife saw little of each other, and hardly spoke.
Both were unhappy; but Kate was angriest, and Griffith saddest.
In an evil hour he let out his grief to Caroline Ryder. She seized the opportunity, and, by a show of affectionate sympathy and zeal, made herself almost necessary to him, and contrived to establish a very perilous relation between him and her. Matters went so far as this, that the poor man's eye used to brighten when he saw her coming.
Yet this victory cost her a sore heart and all the patient self-denial of her sex. To be welcome to Griffith she had to speak to him of her rival, and to speak well of her. She tried talking of herself and her attachment; he yawned in her face: she tried smooth detraction and innuendo; he fired up directly, and defended her of whose conduct he had been complaining the very moment before.
Then she saw that there was but one way to the man's heart. Sore, and sick, and smiling, she took that way: resolving to bide her time; to worm herself in any how, and wait patiently till she could venture to thrust her mistress out.