Miss Gascoigne was not a bad woman, only an utterly mistaken and misguided one.  She meant no harm—­very few people do deliberately mean harm—­they only do it.  She had set herself against her brother-in-law’s marriage—­not in the abstract, she was scarcely so wicked and foolish as that; but against his marrying this particular woman, partly because Christian was only a governess, with somewhat painful antecedents—­one who could neither bring money, rank, nor position to Dr. Grey and his family, but chiefly because it had wounded her self-love that she, Miss Gascoigne, had not been consulted, and had had no hand in bringing about the marriage.

Therefore she had determined to see it, and all concerning it, in the very worst light to modify nothing, to excuse nothing.  She had made up her mind that things were to be so and so, and so and so they must of necessity turn out. Audi alteram partem was an idea that never occurred, never had occurred, in all her life to Henrietta Gascoigne.  In fact, she would never have believed there could be “another side,” since she herself was not able to behold it.

Yet she had not a cruel nature, and the misery she endured during the few minutes that she sat thinking of the blow that was about to fall on Dr. Grey and his family, heaping on the picture every exaggerated imagination of a mind always prone to paint things in violent colors, was enough to atone for half the wrong she had done.

She started up like a guilty creature when the door opened, and Phillis entered with a letter in her hand.

“Beg pardon, ma’am, I thought you were Mrs. Grey.”

“She is just gone up stairs—­will be back directly,” said Miss Gascoigne, anxious to keep up appearances to the last available moment.  “Is that letter for her?  Shall I give it to her?”

“No, thank you, I’ll give it myself; and it’ll be the last that ever I will give, for it isn’t my business,” added Phillis, flustered and indignant, so much so that she dropped the letter on the floor.

By the light of the small taper there was a mutual search for it—­why mutual Miss Gascoigne best knew.  It was she who picked it up, and before she had delivered it back she had clearly seen it all—­ handwriting, seal and tinted envelope, with the initials “E.  U.” on the corner.

Some hidden feeling in both of them, the lady and the servant, some last remnant of pity and charity, prevented their confiding openly in one another, even if Miss Gascoigne could have condescended so far.  But she knew as well as if Phillis had told, and Phillis likewise was perfectly aware she knew, that the note came from Sir Edwin Uniacke.

Poor Aunt Henrietta!  She was so horrified—­literally horrified, that she could bear no more.  She left no message—­waited for nobody—­but hurried back as fast as she could walk, through twilight, to her own cottage at Avonside.

Chapter 14.