s it Psalmody. He thinks
things ought always to be as they are, with women and men; and women
preachers he does detest. She is not one to preach. You are waiting to
hear what I have to tell. That man Major Worrell has tried to rob me of
everything I ever had to set a value on:--love, I 'd say;--he laughs at a
woman like me loving.'

Dartrey nodded, to signify a known sort of fellow.

'She came here.' Mrs. Marsett's tears had risen. 'I ought not to have let
her come. I invited her--for once: I am lonely. None of my sex--none I
could respect! I meant it for only once. She promised to sing to me. And,
Oh! how she sings! You have heard her. My whole heart came out. I declare
I believe girls exist who can hear our way of life--and I'm not so bad
except compared with that angel, who heard me, and was and is, I could
take oath, no worse for it. Some girls can; she is one. I am all for
bringing them up in complete innocence. If I was a great lady, my
daughters should never know anything of the world until they were
married. But Miss Radnor is a young lady who cannot be hurt. She is above
us. Oh! what a treasure for a man!--and my God! for any man born of woman
to insult a saint, as she is!--He is a beast!'

'Major Worrell met her here?'

'Blame me as much as you like: I do myself. Half my rage with him is at
myself for putting her in the way of such a beast to annoy. Each time she
came, I said it was to be the last. I let her see what a mercy from
heaven she was to me. She would come. It has not been many times. She
wishes me either to . . . Captain Marsett has promised. And nothing seems
hard--to me when my own God's angel is by. She is! I'm not such a bad
woman, but I never before I knew her knew the meaning of the word virtue.
There is the young lady that man worried with his insulting remarks!
though he must have known she was a lady:--because he found her in my
rooms.'

'You were present when, as you say, he insulted her?'

'I was. Here it commenced; and he would see her downstairs.'

'You heard?'

'Of course, I never left her.'

'Give me a notion . . .'

'To get her to make an appointment: to let him conduct her home.'

'She was alone?'

'Her maid was below.'

'And this happened . . .?'

'Yesterday, after dark. My Ned--Captain Marsett encourages him to be
familiar. I should be the lowest of women if I feared the threats of such
a reptile of a man. I could tell you more. I can't always refuse his
visits,