door, she determined in her wrath that she would never again have confidential intercourse with him in any relation of life whatsoever.
'Dr. Thorne,' said she, 'I think you have forgotten yourself. You must excuse me if I say that after what has passed I—I—I—'
'Certainly,' said he, fully understanding what she meant; and bowing low as he opened first the study-door, then the front door, then the garden-gate.
And then Lady Arabella stalked off, not without full observation from Mrs. Yates Umbleby and her friend Miss Gustring, who lived close by.
CHAPTER XXVII.
MISS THORNE GOES ON A VISIT.
And now began the unpleasant things at Greshamsbury of which we have here told. When Lady Arabella walked away from the doctor's house she resolved that, let it cost what it might, there should be war to the knife between her and him. She had been insulted by him—so at least she said to herself, and so she was prepared to say to others also—and it was not to be borne that a De Courcy should allow her parish doctor to insult her with impunity. She would tell her husband with all the dignity that she could assume, that it had now become alsolutely necessary that he should protect his wife by breaking entirely with his unmannered neighbour; and, as regarded the young members of her family, she would use the authority of a mother, and absolutely forbid them to hold any intercourse with Mary Thorne. So resolving, she walked quickly back to her own house.
The doctor, when left alone, was not quite satisfied with the part he had taken in the interview. He had spoken from impulse rather than from judgment, and, as is generally the case with men who do so speak, he had afterwards to acknowledge to himself that he had been imprudent. He accused himself probably of more violence than he had really used, and was therefore unhappy; but, nevertheless, his indignation was not at rest. He was angry with himself; but not on that account the less angry with Lady Arabella. She was cruel, overbearing, and unreasonable; cruel in the most cruel of manners, so he thought; but not on that account was he justified in forgetting the forbearance due from a gentleman to a lady. Mary, moreover, had owed much
