"Still, I don't see what I can do now, papa. Perhaps I've been
foolish; but what I did, I did of my own self. It was not suggested
to me. And I'm sure it was not wrong in morals, whatever it might
be in judgment. As I said, it's all over now; what I did ended the
affair, I am thankful to say; and it was with that object I did it.
If people choose to talk about me, I must submit; and so must you,
dear papa."
"Does your mother--does Mrs. Gibson--know anything about it?" asked
he with sudden anxiety.
"No; not a bit; not a word. Pray don't name it to her. That might
lead to more mischief than anything else. I have really told you
everything I am at liberty to tell."
It was a great relief to Mr. Gibson to find that his sudden fear that
his wife might have been privy to it all was ill-founded. He had been
seized by a sudden dread that she, whom he had chosen to marry in
order to have a protectress and guide for his daughter, had been
cognizant of this ill-advised adventure with Mr. Preston; nay, more,
that she might even have instigated it to save her own child; for
that Cynthia was, somehow or other, at the bottom of it all he had
no doubt whatever. But now, at any rate, Mrs. Gibson had not been
playing a treacherous part; that was all the comfort he could extract
out of Molly's mysterious admission, that much mischief might result
from Mrs. Gibson's knowing anything about these meetings with Mr.
Preston.
"Then, what is to be done?" said he. "These reports are abroad,--am
I to do nothing to contradict them? Am I to go about smiling and
content with all this talk about you, passing from one idle gossip to
another?"
"I'm afraid so. I'm very sorry, for I never meant you to have known
anything about it, and I can see now how it must distress you. But
surely when nothing more happens, and nothing comes of what has
happened, the wonder and the gossip must die away. I know you believe
every word I have said, and that you trust me, papa. Please, for my
sake, be patient with all this gossip and cackle."
"It will try me hard, Molly," said he.
"For my sake, papa!"
"I don't see what else I can do," replied he moodily, "unless I get
hold of Preston."
"That would be the worst of all. That would make a talk. And, after
all, perhaps he was not so very much to blame. Yes! he was. But
he behaved well to me as far as that goes," said she, suddenly
recollecting his speech when Mr. Sheepshanks came up in the Towers'
Park--"Don't stir, you have done nothing to be ashamed of."