Then Mrs. Sandal began to sob hysterically; and the rector called his housekeeper, and the best rooms were quickly opened and warmed, and the sorrowful, weary lady lay down to rest in their comfort and seclusion.  Charlotte did not find their friend as unprepared for the event as she supposed likely.  Private matters sift through the public mind in a way beyond all explanation, and “There had been a general impression,” he said, “that the late squire’s widow was very ill done to by the new squire.”

Charlotte did not spare the new squire.  All his petty ways of annoying her mother and herself and Stephen; all his small economies about their fire and food and comforts; all his scornful contempt for their household ways and traditions; all that she knew regarding his purchase of Harry’s rights, and its ruthless revelation to her dying father,—­all that she knew wrong of Julius, she told.  It was a relief to do it.  While he had been their guest, and afterwards while they had been his guests, her mouth had been closed.  Week after week she had suffered in silence.  The long-restrained tide of wrong flowed from her lips with a strange, pathetic eloquence; and, as the rector held her hands, his own were wet with her fast-falling tears.  At last she laid her head against his shoulder, and wept as if her heart would break.  “He has been our ruin,” she cried, “our evil angel.  He has used Harry’s folly and father’s goodness and Sophia’s love—­all of them—­for his own selfish ends.”

“He is a bad one.  He should be hanged, and cheap at it!  Hear him, talking of having lived so often!  God have mercy!  He is not worthy of one life, let alone of two.”

At this juncture, Julius himself entered the room.  Neither of its occupants had heard his arrival, and he saw Charlotte in the abandon of her grief and anger.  She would have risen, but the rector would not let her.  “Sit still, Charlotte,” he said.  “He has done his do, and you need not fear him any more.  And dry your tears, my dearie; learn while you are young to squander nothing, not even grief.”  Then he turned to Julius, and gave him one of those looks which go through all disguises into the shoals and quicksands of the heart; such a look as that with which the tamer of wild beasts controls his captive.

“Well, squire, what want you?”

“I want justice, sir.  I am come here to defend myself.”

“Very well, I am here to listen.”

Self-justification is a vigorous quality:  Julius spoke with eloquence, and with a superficial show of right.  The rector heard him patiently, offering no comment, and permitting no disputation.  But, when Julius was finished, he answered with a certain stern warmth, “Say what you will, squire, you and I are of two ways of thinking.  You are in the wrong, and you will be hard set to prove yourself in the right; and that is as true as gospel.”

“I am, at least, a gentleman, rector; and I know how to treat gentlewomen.”