Lady Richard could do nothing but gasp
out, "And what happened, Mrs. Baxter?"
Mrs. Baxter told her, punctuating the story with stitches on a June
petticoat.
"She ran away from him twice; but he brought her back, and, they said,
beat her well. At any rate she ended by settling down to her new life.
They had seven children, all brought up to the circus; only the other day
one was sent to prison for ill-treating the dancing bear. He's dead, but
she still keeps the circus under his name. Of course all her old friends
have dropped her; indeed I hear she drinks. Her father still preaches
once on Sundays."
It was easy to disentangle the relevant from the merely reminiscent; the
running away, the beating, the settling down, the complete absorption in
the new life (vividly indicated by the seven children and their habits),
stood out saliently. Add the attitude of old friends, and Lady Richard
could not deny the value of the parallel. She acknowledged it with a
long-drawn sigh.
"May Gaston must be mad," she observed. "You can imagine how Dick feels
about it!"
"And all the while her cousin in the Bank was quite ready to marry her
and give her a nice little home.
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