Brooke Burgess had been to Exeter and had gone, for he only remained there one night, and everything was apparently settled. It was not exactly told through Exeter that Miss Stanbury’s heir was to be allowed to marry Miss Stanbury’s niece; but Martha knew it, and Giles Hickbody guessed it, and Dorothy was allowed to tell her mother and sister, and Brooke himself, in his own careless way, had mentioned the matter to his uncle Barty. As Miss Stanbury had also told the secret in confidence to Mrs MacHugh, it cannot be said that it was altogether well kept. Four days after Brooke’s departure the news reached the Frenches at Heavitree. It was whispered to Camilla by one of the shopmen with whom she was still arranging her marriage trousseau, and was repeated by her to her mother and sister with some additions which were not intended to be good-natured. ‘He gets her and the money together as a bargain of course,’ said Camilla. ‘I only hope the money won’t be found too dear.’

‘Perhaps he won’t get it after all,’ said Arabella.

‘That would be cruel,’ replied Camilla. ‘I don’t think that even Miss Stanbury is so false as that.’

Things were going very badly at Heavitree. There was war there, almost everlastingly, though such little playful conversations as the above shewed that there might be an occasional lull in the battle. Mr Gibson was not doing his duty. That was clear enough. Even Mrs French, when she was appealed to with almost frantic energy by her younger daughter, could not but acknowledge that he was very remiss as a lover. And Camilla, in her fury, was very imprudent. That very frantic energy which induced her to appeal to her mother was, in itself, proof of her imprudence. She knew that she was foolish, but she could not control her passion. Twice had she detected Arabella in receiving notes from Mr Gibson, which she did not see, and of which it had been intended that she should know nothing. And once, when she spent a night away at Ottery St. Mary with a friend, a visit which was specially prefatory to marriage, and made in reference to bridesmaids’ dresses, Arabella had had — so at least Camilla was made to believe — a secret meeting with Mr Gibson in some of the lanes which lead down from Heavitree to the Topsham road.

‘I happened to meet him, and spoke two words to him,’ said Arabella. ‘Would you have me cut him?’

‘I’ll tell you what it is, Bella, if there is any underhand game going on that I don’t understand, all Exeter shall be on fire before you shall carry it out.’

Bella made no answer to this, but shrugged her shoulders. Camilla was almost at a loss to guess what might be the truth. Would not any sister, so accused on such an occasion, rebut the accusation with awful wrath? But Arabella simply shrugged her shoulders, and went her way. It was now the 16th of April, and there wanted but one short fortnight to their marriage. The man had not the courage to jilt her! She felt sure that he had not heart enough to do a deed of such audacity. And her sister, too, was weak and a coward, and would lack the power to stand on her legs and declare herself to be the perpetrator of such villany. Her mother, as she knew well, would always have preferred that her elder daughter should be the bride; but her mother was not the woman to have the hardihood, now, in the eleventh hour, to favour such an intrigue. Let her wish be what it might, she would not be strong enough to carry through the accomplishment of it. They would all know that that threat of hers of setting Exeter on fire would be carried out after some fashion that would not be inadequate to the occasion. A sister, a mother, a promised lover, all false — all so damnably, cruelly false! It was impossible. No history, no novel of most sensational interest, no wonderful villany that had ever been wrought into prose or poetry, would have been equal to this. It was impossible. She told herself so a score of times a day. And yet the circumstances were so terribly suspicious! Mr Gibson’s conduct as a lover was simply disgraceful to him as a man and a clergyman. He was full of excuses, which she knew to be false. He would never come near her if he could help it. When he was with her, he was as cold as an archbishop both in word and in action. Nothing would tempt him to any outward manifestation of affection. He would talk of nothing but the poor women of St. Peter-cum-Pumpkin in the city, and the fraudulent idleness of a certain colleague in the cathedral services, who was always shirking his work. He made her no presents. He never walked with her. He was always gloomy, and he had indeed so behaved himself in public that people were beginning to talk of ‘poor Mr Gibson.’ And yet he could meet Arabella on the sly in the lanes, and send notes to her by the green-grocer’s boy! Poor Mr Gibson indeed! Let her once get him well over the 29th of April, and the people of Exeter might talk about poor Mr Gibson if they pleased. And Bella’s conduct was more wonderful almost than that of Mr Gibson. With all her cowardice, she still held up her head, held it perhaps a little higher than was usual with her. And when that grievous accusation was made against her — made and repeated — an accusation the very thought and sound of which would almost have annihilated her had there been a decent feeling in her bosom, she would simply shrug her shoulders and walk away. ‘Camilla,’ she had once said, ‘you will drive that man mad before you have done.’ ‘What is it to you how I drive him?’ Camilla had answered in her fury. Then Arabella had again shrugged her shoulders and walked away. Between Camilla and her mother, too, there had come to be an almost internecine quarrel on a collateral point. Camilla was still carrying on a vast arrangement which she called the preparation of her trousseau, but which both Mrs French and Bella regarded as a spoliation of the domestic nest, for the proud purposes of one of the younger birds. And this had grown so fearfully that in two different places Mrs French had found herself compelled to request that no further articles might be supplied to Miss Camilla. The bride elect had rebelled, alleging that as no fortune was to be provided for her, she had a right to take with her such things as she could carry away in her trunks and boxes. Money could be had at the bank, she said; and, after all, what were fifty pounds more or less on such an occasion as this? And then she went into a calculation to prove that her mother and sister would be made so much richer by her absence, and that she was doing so much for them by her marriage, that nothing could be more mean in them than that they should hesitate to supply her with such things as she desired to make her entrance into Mr Gibson’s house respectable. But Mrs French was obdurate, and Mr Gibson was desired to speak to her. Mr Gibson, in fear and trembling, told her that she ought to repress her spirit of extravagance, and Camilla at once foresaw that he would avail himself of this plea against her should he find it possible at any time to avail himself of any plea. She became ferocious, and, turning upon him, told him to mind his own business. Was it not all for him that she was doing it? ‘She was not,’ she said, ‘disposed to submit to any control in such matters from him till he had assumed his legal right to it by standing with her before the altar.’ It came, however, to be known all over Exeter that Miss Camilla’s expenditure had been checked, and that, in spite of the joys naturally incidental to a wedding, things were not going well with the ladies at Heavitree.

At last the blow came. Camilla was aware that on a certain morning her mother had been to Mr Gibson’s house, and had held a long conference with him. She could learn nothing of what took place there, for at that moment she had taken upon herself to place herself on non-speaking terms with her mother in consequence of those disgraceful orders which had been given to the tradesmen. But Bella had not been at Mr Gibson’s house at the time, and Camilla, though she presumed that her own conduct had been discussed in a manner very injurious to herself, did not believe that any step was being then arranged which would be positively antagonistic to her own views. The day fixed was now so very near that there could, she felt, be no escape for the victim. But she was wrong.

Mr Gibson had been found by Mrs French in a very excited state on that occasion. He had wept, and pulled his hair, and torn open his waistcoat, had spoken of himself as a wretch, pleading, however, at the same time, that he was more sinned against than sinning, had paced about the room with his hands dashing against his brows, and at last had flung himself prostrate on the ground. The meaning of it all was that he had tried very hard, and had found at last that ‘he couldn’t do it.’ ‘I am ready to submit,’ said he, ‘to any verdict that you may pronounce against me, but I should deceive you and deceive her if I didn’t say at once that I can’t do it.’ He went on to explain that since he had unfortunately entered into his present engagement with Camilla, of whose position he spoke in quite a touching manner, and since he had found what was the condition of his own heart and feelings, he had consulted a friend who, i............