‘How false, Miss Stanbury?’ asked Camilla.

‘Altogether false; as false as they can be.’

‘Mr Gibson must know his own mind,’ said Camilla.

‘My dear, there’s a little disappointment,’ said Miss French, ’and it don’t signify.’

‘There’s no disappointment at all,’ said Miss Stanbury, ’and it does signify very much.  Now that I’ve begun, I’ll go to the bottom of it.  If you say that Mr Gibson told you to make these statements, I’ll go to Mr Gibson.  I’ll have it out somehow.’

‘You may have what you like out for us, Miss Stanbury,’ said Camilla.

‘I don’t believe Mr Gibson said anything of the kind.’

‘That’s civil,’ said Camilla.

‘But why shouldn’t he?’ asked Arabella.

‘There were the reports, you know,’ said Mrs French.

’And why shouldn’t he deny them when there wasn’t a word of truth in them?’ continued Camilla.  ’For my part, I think the gentleman is bound for the lady’s sake to declare that there’s nothing in it when there is nothing in it.’  This was more than Miss Stanbury could bear.  Hitherto the enemy had seemed to have the best of it.  Camilla was firing broadside after broadside, as though she was assured of victory.  Even Mrs French was becoming courageous; and Arabella was forgetting the place where her chignon ought to have been.  ’I really do not know what else there is for me to say,’ remarked Camilla, with a toss of her head, ’and an air of impudence that almost drove poor Miss Stanbury frantic.

It was on her tongue to declare the whole truth, but she refrained.  She had schooled herself on this subject vigorously.  She would not betray Mr Gibson.’  Had she known all the truth or had she believed Camilla French’s version of the story there would have been no betrayal.  But looking at the matter with such knowledge as she had at present, she did not even yet feel herself justified in declaring that Mr Gibson had offered his hand to her niece, and had been refused.  She was, however, sorely tempted.  ‘Very well, ladies,’ she said.  ’I shall now see Mr Gibson, and ask him whether he did give you authority to make such statements as you have been spreading abroad everywhere.’  Then the door of the room was opened, and in a moment Mr Gibson was among them.  He was true to his promise, and had come to see Arabella with her altered headdress, but he had come at this hour thinking that escape in the morning would be easier and quicker than it might have been in the evening.  His mind had been full of Arabella and her head-dress even up to the moment of his knocking at the door; but all that was driven out of his brain at once when he saw Miss Stanbury.

‘Here is Mr Gibson himself,’ said Mrs French.

‘How do you do, Mr Gibson?’ said Miss Stanbury, with a very stately courtesy.  They had never met since the day on which he had been, as he stated, turned out of Miss Stanbury’s house.  He now bowed to her; but there was no friendly greeting, and the Frenches were able to congratulate themselves on the apparent loyalty to themselves of the gentleman who stood among them.  ‘I have come here, Mr Gibson,’ continued Miss Stanbury, ’to put a small matter right in which you are concerned.’