“It’s for her own good,” said Gammon with significant brevity.

He did not choose to say more or to ask any questions which might turn to Polly’s disadvantage.  For his own part he seldom gave a thought to the girl, and was far from imagining that she cared whether he kept on friendly terms with her or not.  At his landlady’s suggestion he had joined in the domestic plot for sending Polly to “Coventry”—­a phrase, by the by, which would hardly have been understood in Mrs. Bubb’s household; he argued that it might do her good, and that in any case some such demonstration was called for by her outrageous temper.  If Polly could not get on with people who were sincerely her friends and had always wished her well, let her go elsewhere and exercise her ill-humour on strangers.  Gammon did not believe that she would go; day after day he expected to hear that the quarrel was made up, and that Polly had cleared her reputation by a few plain words.

But this was the last day save one of Polly’s week, and as yet she had given no sign.  On coming down into the kitchen to discuss his fried eggs and bacon he saw at once that Mrs. Bubb was seriously perturbed; with huffings and cuffings—­a most unusual thing—­she had just despatched her children to school, and was now in conflict with Moggie about a broken pie-dish, which the guilty general had concealed in the back-yard.  A prudent man in the face of such tempers, Gammon sat down without speaking, and fell to on the viands which Mrs. Bubb—­also silent—­set before him.  In a minute or two, having got rid of Moggie and closed the kitchen door, Mrs. Bubb came near and addressed him in a subdued voice.

“What d’you think?  It’s her uncle!  It’s Clover!”

“Eh?  What is?”

“Why, it’s him as ’as been giving her things.”

“Has she said so?” asked Gammon, with eager interest.

“I met her as she was coming down just now and she was in a tearin’ rage, and she says to me, she says, ‘When you see my awnt,’ she says, ’you tell her I know all about her ’usband, and that I wouldn’t tell her anything not if she went down on her bended knees!  There now!’”

The uneducated man may perchance repeat with exactness something that has been said to him, or in his hearing; for the uneducated woman such accuracy is impossible.  Mrs. Bubb meant to be strictly truthful, but in the nature of things she would have gone astray, even had Polly’s message taken a much simpler form than wrathful sarcasm gave to it.  However, she conveyed the spirit of Polly’s words, and Gammon was so excited by the report that he sprang up, overturning his cup of coffee.

“Oh, cuss it!  Never mind; most’s gone on to my trousers.  She said that?  And to think we never thought of it!  Where is she?  When’ll she be back?”

“I don’t know.  But she says she’s going to leave to-morrow, and looks as if she meant it, too.  Hadn’t I better send to Mrs. Clover?”