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Elfride perceived a man, sitting with his back towards herself, talking to her father. She would have retired, but Mr. Swancourt had seen her. 'Come in, he said; 'it is only Martin Cannister, come for a copy of the register for poor Mrs. Jethway. Martin Cannister, the sexton, was rather a favourite with Elfride.
She turned the handle and entered, throwing off the cloak which enveloped her, under which she appeared without hat or bonnet, and in the sort of half-toilette country people ordinarily dine in. Then advancing to the foot of the staircase she called distinctly, but somewhat fearfully, 'Mrs. Jethway! No answer.
After breakfast, Plymouth arose into view, and grew distincter to their nearing vision, the Breakwater appearing like a streak of phosphoric light upon the surface of the sea. Elfride looked furtively around for Mrs. Jethway, but could discern no shape like hers.
After several minutes' vain endeavour to account for any design Mrs. Jethway could have in watching her, Elfride decided to think that, if it were the widow, the encounter was accidental. She remembered that the widow in her restlessness was often visiting the village near Southampton, which was her original home, and it was possible that she chose water-transit with the idea of saving expense.
The letter enclosed was the note in pencil that Elfride had written in Mrs. Jethway's cottage: 'DEAR MRS. JETHWAY, I have been to visit you. I wanted much to see you, but I cannot wait any longer. I came to beg you not to execute the threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway, let any one know I ran away from home! It would ruin me with him, and break my heart.
Had Elfride, with any degree of coolness, asserted that she had done no harm, the poisonous breath of the dead Mrs. Jethway would have been inoperative. Why did he not make his little docile girl tell more? If on that subject he had only exercised the imperativeness customary with him on others, all might have been revealed.
Jethway. Elfride was not in the apartment. Mrs. Swancourt made a few inquiries concerning the verdict and collateral circumstances. Then she said 'The postman came this morning the minute after you left the house. There was only one letter for you, and I have it here. She took a letter from the lid of her workbox, and handed it to him.
Perhaps I knew well ah, so well! a youth whose place you took, as he there now takes yours. Will you let her break your heart, and bring you to an untimely grave, as she did the one before you? 'You are Mrs. Jethway, I think. What do you do here? And why do you talk so wildly? 'Because my heart is desolate, and nobody cares about it. May hers be so that brought trouble upon me!
'And then, after that, when you were riding on Revels-day by our house, and the lads were gathered there, and you wanted to dismount, when Jim Drake and George Upway and three or four more ran forward to hold your pony, and Felix stood back timid, why did you beckon to him, and say you would rather he held it? 'O Mrs. Jethway, you do think so mistakenly!
'Who is that woman? said Stephen. 'She looked hard at you. 'Mrs. Jethway a widow, and mother of that young man whose tomb we sat on the other night. Stephen, she is my enemy. Would that God had had mercy enough upon me to have hidden this from HER! 'Do not talk so hopelessly, he remonstrated. 'I don't think she recognized us. 'I pray that she did not. He put on a more vigorous mood.
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