Free himself from
the connection! Oh, Nora, Nora! that it should come to this! that I
should be thus threatened, who have been as innocent as a baby! If it
were not for my child, I think that I should destroy myself!'
Nora said what she could to comfort her sister, insisting chiefly on
the promise that the child should not be taken away. There was no
doubt as to the husband's power in the mind of either of them; and
though, as regarded herself, Mrs Trevelyan would have defied her
husband, let his power be what it might, yet she acknowledged to
herself that she was in some degree restrained by the fear that she
would find herself deprived of her only comfort.
'We must just go where he bids us till papa comes,' said Nora.
'And when papa is here, what help will there be then? He will not let
me go back to the islands with my boy. For myself I might die, or get
out of his way anywhere. I can see that. Priscilla Stanbury is right
when she says that no woman should trust herself to any man. Disgraced!
That I should live to be told by my husband that I had disgraced him by
a lover!'
There was some sort of agreement made between the two sisters as to the
manner in which Priscilla should be interrogated respecting the
sentence of banishment which had been passed.
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