about with her knowledge, and,
seemingly, with her consent. That is to say, the Captain had argued her
into a corner, where she stood, like the last forlorn king in a game of
draughts, fenced round and hemmed in by opponent kings. She had not the
strength of mind to assert herself boldly, and say: "I will not have it
so. This injustice shall not be."

A change had come over the spirit of the Abbey House kitchen, which was
sorely felt in Beechdale and those half-dozen clusters of cottages
within a two-mile radius, which called themselves villages, and all of
which had turned to the Abbey House for light and comfort, as the
sunflower turns to the sun. Captain Winstanley had set his face against
what he called miscellaneous charity. Such things should be done and no
other. His wife should subscribe liberally to all properly organised
institutions--schools, Dorcas societies, maternity societies,
soup-kitchens, regulated dole of bread or coals, every form of relief
that was given systematically and by line and rule; but the good
Samaritan business--the picking up stray travellers, and paying for
their maintenance at inns--was not in the Captain's view of charity.
Henceforward Mrs. Winstanley's name was to appear with due honour upon
all printed subscription-lists, just as it had done when she was Mrs.
Tempest; but the glory of the Abbey House kitchen had departed. The
beggar and the cadger were no longer sure of a meal. The villagers were
no longer to come boldly asking for what they wanted in time of
trouble--broth, wine, jelly, for the sick, allowances of new milk, a
daily loaf when father was out of work, broken victuals at all times.
It was all over. The kitchen-doors were to be closed against all
intruders.

"My love, I do not wonder that you have spent every sixpence of your
income," said Captain Winstanley. "You have been keeping an Irish
household. I can fancy an O'Donoghue or a Knight of Glyn living in this
kind of way; but I should hardly have expected such utter riot and
recklessness in an English gentleman's house."

"I am afraid Trimmer has been rather extravagant," assented Mrs.
Winstanley. "I have trusted everything to her entirely, knowing that
she is quite devoted to us, poor dear soul."

"She is so devoted, that I should think in another year or so, at the
rate she was going, she would have landed you in the bankruptcy court.
Her books for the last ten years--I have gone through them
carefully--show a