“Well, sir, Catherick took my husband’s advice and waited,” Mrs. Clements continued.  “And as I told you, he hadn’t long to wait.  On the second day he found his wife and Sir Percival whispering together quite familiar, close under the vestry of the church.  I suppose they thought the neighbourhood of the vestry was the last place in the world where anybody would think of looking after them, but, however that may be, there they were.  Sir Percival, being seemingly surprised and confounded, defended himself in such a guilty way that poor Catherick (whose quick temper I have told you of already) fell into a kind of frenzy at his own disgrace, and struck Sir Percival.  He was no match (and I am sorry to say it) for the man who had wronged him, and he was beaten in the cruelest manner, before the neighbours, who had come to the place on hearing the disturbance, could run in to part them.  All this happened towards evening, and before nightfall, when my husband went to Catherick’s house, he was gone, nobody knew where.  No living soul in the village ever saw him again.  He knew too well, by that time, what his wife’s vile reason had been for marrying him, and he felt his misery and disgrace, especially after what had happened to him with Sir Percival, too keenly.  The clergyman of the parish put an advertisement in the paper begging him to come back, and saying that he should not lose his situation or his friends.  But Catherick had too much pride and spirit, as some people said—­too much feeling, as I think, sir—­to face his neighbours again, and try to live down the memory of his disgrace.  My husband heard from him when he had left England, and heard a second time, when he was settled and doing well in America.  He is alive there now, as far as I know, but none of us in the old country—­his wicked wife least of all—­are ever likely to set eyes on him again.”

“What became of Sir Percival?” I inquired.  “Did he stay in the neighbourhood?”

“Not he, sir.  The place was too hot to hold him.  He was heard at high words with Mrs. Catherick the same night when the scandal broke out, and the next morning he took himself off.”

“And Mrs. Catherick?  Surely she never remained in the village among the people who knew of her disgrace?”

“She did, sir.  She was hard enough and heartless enough to set the opinions of all her neighbours at flat defiance.  She declared to everybody, from the clergyman downwards, that she was the victim of a dreadful mistake, and that all the scandal-mongers in the place should not drive her out of it, as if she was a guilty woman.  All through my time she lived at Old Welmingham, and after my time, when the new town was building, and the respectable neighbours began moving to it, she moved too, as if she was determined to live among them and scandalise them to the very last.  There she is now, and there she will stop, in defiance of the best of them, to her dying day.”