During these days there were terrible doings at Exeter. Camilla had sworn that if Mr Gibson did not come to, there should be a tragedy, and it appeared that she was inclined to keep her word. Immediately after the receipt of her letter from Mr Gibson she had had an interview with that gentleman in his lodgings, and had asked him his intentions. He had taken measures to fortify himself against such an attack; but, whatever those measures were, Camilla had broken through them. She had stood before him as he sat in his armchair, and he had been dumb in her presence. It had perhaps been well for him that the eloquence of her indignation had been so great that she had hardly been able to pause a moment for a reply. ‘Will you take your letter back again?’ she had said. ‘I should be wrong to do that,’ he had lisped out in reply, ‘because it is true. As a Christian minister I could not stand with you at the altar with a lie in my mouth.’ In no other way did he attempt to excuse himself but that, twice repeated, filled up all the pause which she made for him.

There never had been such a case before so impudent, so cruel, so gross, so uncalled for, so unmanly, so unnecessary, so unjustifiable, so damnable so sure of eternal condemnation! All this she said to him with loud voice, and clenched fist, and starting eyes regardless utterly of any listeners on the stairs, or of outside passers in the street. In very truth she was moved to a sublimity of indignation. Her low nature became nearly poetic under the wrong inflicted upon her. She was almost tempted to tear him with her hands, and inflict upon him at the moment some terrible vengeance which should be told of for ever in the annals of Exeter. A man so mean as he, so weak, so cowardly, one so little of a hero that he should dare to do it, and dare to sit there before her, and to say that he would do it! ‘Your gown shall be torn off your back, Sir, and the very boys of Exeter shall drag you through the gutters!’ To this threat he said nothing, but sat mute, hiding his face in his hands. ‘And now tell me this, sir, is there anything between you and Bella?’ But there was no voice in reply. ‘Answer my question, sir. I have a right to ask it.’ Still he said not a word. ‘Listen to me. Sooner than that you and she should be man and wife, I would stab her! Yes, I would you poor, paltry, lying, cowardly creature!’ She remained with him for more than half an hour, and then banged out of the room, flashing back a look of scorn at him as she went. Martha, before that day was over, had learned the whole story from Mr Gibson’s cook, and had told her mistress.

‘I did not think he had so much spirit in him,’ was Miss Stanbury’s answer. Throughout Exeter the great wonder arising from the crisis was the amount of spirit which had been displayed by Mr Gibson.

When he was left alone he shook himself, and began to think that if there were danger that such interviews might occur frequently, he had better leave Exeter for good. As he put his hand over his forehead, he declared to himself that a very little more of that kind of thing would kill him. When a couple of hours had passed over his head he shook himself again, and sat down and wrote a letter to his intended mother-inlaw.

‘I do not mean to complain,’ he said, ‘God knows I have no right; but I cannot stand a repetition of what has occurred just now. If your younger daughter comes to see me again I must refuse to see her, and shall leave the town. I am ready to make what reparation may be possible for the mistake into which I have fallen.

‘T. G.’

Mrs French was no doubt much afraid of her younger daughter, but she was less afraid of her than were other people. Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt; and who can be so familiar with a child as its parent? She did not in her heart believe that Camilla would murder anybody, and she fully realised the conviction that, even after all that was come and gone, it would be better that one of her daughters should have a husband than that neither should be so blessed. If only Camilla could be got out of Exeter for a few months how good a thing it would be for them all! She had a brother in Gloucester; if only he could be got to take Camilla for a few months! And then, too, she knew that if the true rights of her two daughters were strictly and impartially examined, Arabella’s claim was much stronger than any that Camilla could put forward to the hand of Mr Gibson.

‘You must not go there again, Camilla,’ the mother said.

‘I shall go whenever I please,’ replied the fury.

‘Now, Camilla, we may as well understand each other. I will not have it done. If I am provoked, I will send to your uncle at Gloucester.’ Now the uncle at Gloucester was a timber merchant, a man with protuberant eyes and a great square chin, known to be a very stern man indeed, and not at all afraid of young women.

‘What do I care for my uncle? My uncle would take my part.’

‘No, he would not. The truth is, Camilla, you interfered with Bella first.’

‘Mamma, how dare you say so!’

‘You did, my dear. And these are the consequences.’

‘And you mean to say that she is to be Mrs Gibson?’

‘I say nothing about that. But I do not see why they shouldn’t be married if their hearts are inclined to each other.’

‘I will die first!’

‘Your dying has nothing to do with it, Camilla.’

‘And I will kill her!’

‘If you speak to me again in that way I will write to your uncle at Gloucester. I have done the best I could for you both, and I will not bear such treatment.’

‘And how am I treated?’

‘You should not have interfered with your sister.’

‘You are all in a conspiracy together,’ shouted Camilla, ‘you are! There never was anybody so badly treated — never, never, never! What will everybody say of me?’

‘They will pity you, if you will be quiet.’

‘I don’t want to be pitied — I won’t be pitied. I wish I could die; and I will die! Anybody else would, at any rate, have had their mother and sister with them!’ Then she burst into a flood of real, true, womanly tears.

After this there was a lull at Heavitree for a few days. Camilla did not speak to her sister, but she condescended to hold some intercourse with her mother, and to take her meals at the family table. She did not go out of the house, but she employed herself in her own room, doing no one knew what, with all that new clothing and household gear which was to have been transferred in her train to Mr Gibson’s house. Mrs French was somewhat uneasy about the new clothing and household gear, feeling that, in the event of Bella’s marriage, at least a considerable portion of it must be transferred to the new bride. But it was impossible at the present moment to open such a subject to Camilla; it would have been as a proposition to a lioness respecting the taking away of her whelps. Nevertheless, the day must soon come in which something must be said about the clothing and household gear. All the property that had been sent into the house at Camilla’s orders could not be allowed to remain as Camilla’s perquisites, now that Camilla was not to be married. ‘Do you know what she is doing, my dear?’ said Mrs French to her elder daughter.

‘Perhaps she is picking out the marks,’ said Bella.

‘I don’t think she would do that as yet,’ said Mrs French.

‘She might just as well leave it alone,’ said Bella, feeling that one of the two letters would do for her. But neither of them dared to speak to her of her occupation in these first days of her despair.

Mr Gibson in the meantime remained at home, or only left his house to go to the Cathedral or to visit the narrow confines of his little parish. When he was out he felt that everybody looked at him, and it seemed to him that people whispered about him when they saw him at his usual desk in the choir. His friends passed him merely bowing to him, and he was aware that he had done that which would be regarded by every one around him as unpardonable. And yet what ought he to have done? He acknowledged to himself that he had been very foolish, mad, quite demented at the moment when he allowed himself to think it possible that he should marry Camilla French. But having found out how mad he had been at that moment, havi............