If now, within these twenty-four hours, Nellie should discover who the poor tramp was, who had frightened her so much on the previous evening, all this would be at an end. The child's life would be made desolate for ever. She would never recover from the shock, and to injure lovely Nellie so bitterly would be worse to Mary Goddard than to be obliged to bear the sharpest suffering herself. For, from the day when she had waked to a comprehension of her husband's baseness, the love for her child had taken in her breast the place of the love for Walter.
She did not think connectedly; she did not realise her fears; she was almost wholly unstrung. But she had procured the fifty pounds her husband required and she waited for the night with a dull hope that all might yet be well--as well as anything so horrible could be. If only her husband were not caught in Billingsfield it would not be so bad, perhaps. And yet it may be that her wisest course would have been to betray him that very night. Many just men would have said so; but there are few women who would do it. There are few indeed, so stonyhearted as to betray a man once loved in such a case; and Mary Goddard in her wildest fear never dreamed of giving up the fugitive. She sat all day in her chair, wishing that the day were over, praying that she might be spared any further suffering or that at least it might be spared to her child whom she so loved. She had sent Nellie down to the vicarage with Martha. Mrs. Ambrose loved Nellie better than she loved Nellie's mother, and there was a standing invitation for her to spend the afternoons at the vicarage. Nellie said her mother had a terrible headache and wanted to be alone.
But when the squire came Mrs. Goddard thought it wiser to see him. She had, of course, no intention of confiding to him an account of the events of the previous night, but she felt that if she could talk to him for half an hour she would be stronger. He was himself so strong and honest that he inspired her with courage. She knew, also, that if she were driven to the extremity of confiding in any one she would choose Mr. Juxon rather than Mr. Ambrose. The vicar had been her first friend and she owed him much; but the squire had won her confidence by his noble generosity after she had told him her story. She said to herself that he was more of a man than the vicar. And now he had come to her at the time of her greatest distress, and she was glad to see him.