“Mr. Charnock?” interrogatively said Archie.

“The head of the family—­the original Charnock of Dunstone,” said Rosamond, who was in wild spirits, coming on a worn-out body and mind, and therefore perfectly unguarded.  “Don’t shake your head at me, Jenny, Archie is one of the family, and that makes you so, and I must tell you of his last performance.  You know he is absolutely certain that his dear daughter is more infallible than all the Popes, even since the Council, or than anybody but himself, and that whatever goes wrong here is the consequence of Julius’s faith in Dr. Easterby.  So, when poor Cecil, uneasy in her mind, began asking about the illness at Wil’sbro’, he enlivened her with a prose about misjudging, through well-intentioned efforts of clerical philanthropy to interfere with the sanitary condition of the town—­ so that wells grew tainted, &c., all from ignorant interference.  Poor man he heard a little sob, and looked round, and there was Cecil in a dead faint.  He set all the bells ringing, and sent an express for me.”

“But wasn’t he furious with Anne for mentioning drains at all?”

“My dear Joan, don’t you know how many old women there are of both sorts, who won’t let other people look over the wall at what they gloat on in private?  However, he had his punishment, for he really thought that the subject had been too much for her delicacy, and simply upset her nerves.”

“When was this?”

“Four or five days ago.  She is better, but has said not a word more about it.  She is nothing like strong enough, even for so short a journey as to Portishead; but they say change will be the best thing for her, and the coming down into the family would be too sad.”

“Poor thing!  Yes indeed,” said Jenny; and feeling universally benevolent, she added, “give her my love,” a thing which so sincere a person could hardly have said a few weeks ago.

Reserve was part of Cecil’s nature, and besides, her father was almost always with her; but when she had been for the first time dressed in crape up to her waist, with the tiniest of caps perched toy-like on the top of her passive head, the sight upset him completely, and muttering, “Good heavens!—­a widow at twenty-two!” he hid himself from the sight over some business transactions with Mrs. Poynsett and Miles.

Rosamond seized the opportunity of bringing Julius in to pay his farewell visit, and presently Cecil said, “Julius, I should be much obliged if you would tell me the real facts about this illness.”

“Do,” said Rosamond.  “Her half knowledge is most wearing.”

He gently told her what science had pronounced.

“Then it was Pettitt’s well?” she said.

“They tell us that this was the immediate cause of the outbreak; but there would probably have been quite as much fatal illness the first time any infectious disease came in.  The whole place was in a shameful state, and you were the only people who tried to mitigate it.”