'You've had a letter from Mr Palmer; I was sure it was his
handwriting when it came late last night.'
'You can read it; there is nothing private in it.'
She turned round to the child and Mrs Marshall sat down and read.
When she had finished she laid the letter on the bed again and was
silent.
'Well?' said Madge. 'Would you say "No?"'
'Yes, I would.'
'For your own sake, as well as for his?' Mrs Marshall took up the letter and read half of it again.
'Yes, you had better say "No." You will find it dull, especially if
you have to live in London.'
'Did you find London dull when you came to live in it?'
'Rather; Marshall is away all day long.'
'But scarcely any woman in London expects to marry a man who is not
away all day.'
'They ought then to have heaps of work, or they ought to have a lot
of children to look after; but, perhaps, being born and bred in the
country, I do not know what people in London are. Recollect you were
country born and bred yourself, or, at anyrate, you have lived in the
country for the most of your life.'
'Dull! we must all expect to be dull.'
'There's nothing worse. I've had rheumatic fever, and I say, give me
the fever rather than what comes over me at times here. If Marshall
had not been so good to me, I do not know what I should have done
with myself.'
Madge turned round and looked Mrs Marshall straight in the face, but
she did not flinch.
'Marshall is very good to me, but I was glad when mother and you and
your sister came to keep me company when he is not at home. It tired
me to have my meals alone: it is bad for the digestion; at least, so
he says, and he believes that it was indigestion that was the matter
with me. I should be sorry for myself if you were to go away; not
that I want to put that forward. Maybe I should never see much more
of you: he is rich: you might come here sometimes, but he would not
like to have Marshall and mother and me at his house.'
Not a word was spoken for at least a minute.
Suddenly Mrs Marshall took Madge's hand in her own hands, leaned over
her, and in that kind of whisper with which we wake a sleeper who is
to be aroused to escape from sudden peril, she said in her ear, 'Madge, Madge: for God's sake leave him!'