Partly I have been busy, partly I have been very much worried, partly I have been driven to it in self-defence. I only wish I had been more unyielding before. I told you of the mad clergyman from Morecambe who swept like a whirl-wind into this room, demanding to see my husband and, so far as I can make out, trying to browbeat my boy into marrying his daughter... It began from that day, and I find it hard to forgive Arthur for not enlightening me. With Will it was altogether different; no man that I should care to meet would try to get out of a difficulty at the expense of a woman. The code forbids that... But, if Arthur--who _knew_ as soon as there was anything to know--had told me, I should have acted at _once_; we should not be in our present state of absolute uncertainty, simply waiting with folded hands for the next blow to fall... Men have a strange idea that certain things are exclusively their _province_; their wives, even the mothers of their children must remain outside the door until it is too late to repair the damage. I was not told the _facts_ until two days ago... When my boy was offered that position at Morecambe, I went with him to see that he had a place fit to live in. The Phentons seemed our best hope, they were highly recommended, and I will say ungrudgingly that they played their cards well. An elderly clergyman, who had resigned his benefice on account of ill-health, a decent motherly woman for wife--and these two girls, young, presentable and thoroughly _nice_... If you tell me that I am too unready to think ill of people, I have no defence--except to say that I am not prepared to go through life _suspecting_... Molly Phenton was very much "the old country parson's pretty little daughter"; simple, innocent, shy; a little fluttered, you would say, when she heard who we were, and agreeably excited by the prospect of having a good-looking young man to stay in the house... Perhaps she _overdid_ the innocence. Eyes are eyes, and saucers are saucers... But I don't wish to appear wise after the event. I was completely taken in... And so was Will. She was clever enough to guess that this was the appeal to reach him quickest: the simple little girl with the soft hair and the big grey eyes, living out of the world with her old father, no brothers to protect her or _teach_ her anything. One would never have been surprised to find her affecting a lisp... She deliberately laid herself out to catch my boy.