The Man Between

"Business!" she ejaculated sharply. "Whose business?"

"I think I may say the business of the whole family."

"Nay, I am not in it. My business is just as I want it, and I am not going to talk about it--one way or the other."

"Is not Rawdon Court of some interest to you? It has been the home and seat of the family for many centuries. A good many. Mostyn women have been its mistress."

"I never heard of any Mostyn woman who would not have been far happier away from Rawdon Court. It was a Calvary to them all. There was little Nannie Mostyn, who died with her first baby because Squire Anthony struck her in a drunken passion; and the proud Alethia Mostyn, who suffered twenty years' martyrdom from Squire John; and Sara, who took thirty thousand pounds to Squire Hubert, to fling away at the green table; and Harriet, who was made by her husband, Squire Humphrey, to jump a fence when out hunting with him, and was brought home crippled and scarred for life--a lovely girl of twenty who went through agonies for eleven years without aught of love and help, and died alone while he was following a fox; and there was pretty Barbara Mostyn----"

"Come, come, mother. I did not call here this morning to hear the Rawdons abused, and you forget your own marriage. It was a happy one, I am sure. One Rawdon, at least, must be excepted; and I think I treated my wife as a good husband ought to treat a wife."

"Not you! You treated Mary very badly."

"Mother, not even from you----"

"I'll say it again. The little girl was dying for a year or more, and you were so busy making money you never saw it. If she said or looked a little complaint, you moved restless-like and told her 'she moped too much.' As the end came I spoke to you, and you pooh-poohed all I said. She went suddenly, I know, to most people, but she knew it was her last day, and she longed so to see you, that I sent a servant to hurry you home, but she died before you could make up your mind to leave your 'cases.' She and I were alone when she whispered her last message for you--a loving one, too."

"Mother! Mother! Why recall that bitter day? I did not think--I swear I did not think----"

"Never mind swearing. I was just reminding you that the Rawdons have not been the finest specimens of good husbands. They make landlords, and judges, and soldiers, and even loom-lords of a very respectable sort; but husbands! Lord help their poor wives! So you see, as a Mostyn woman, I have no special interest in Rawdon Court."