'My lady--I hope--will your ladyship please to forgive my father and
mother? I entreat you not to send them away. We shall all be so grateful to
your ladyship if you will overlook--'
'That will do,' said Lady Shale decisively. 'I will merely say that the
sooner you leave the lodge the better; and that you will do well never
again to pass the gates of the Hall. You may go.'
Miss Rockett withdrew. Outside, the footman was awaiting her. He looked at
her with a grin, and asked in an undertone, 'Any good?' But May, to whom
this was the last blow, rushed past him, lost herself in corridors, ran
wildly hither and thither, tears streaming from her eyes, and was at length
guided by a maidservant into the outer air. Fleeing she cared not whither,
she came at length into a still corner of the park, and there, hidden amid
trees, watched only by birds and rabbits, she wept out the bitterness of
her soul.
By an evening train she returned to London, not having confessed to her
family what she had done, and suffering still from some uncertainty as to
the result. A day or two later Betsy wrote to her the happy news that the
sentence of expulsion was withdrawn, and peace reigned once more in the
ivy-covered lodge.
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