horrible old man....


The next day, when Mr. Royall came back to dinner, they faced each other
in silence as usual. Verena's presence at the table was an excuse for
their not talking, though her deafness would have permitted the freest
interchange of confidences. But when the meal was over, and Mr. Royall
rose from the table, he looked back at Charity, who had stayed to help
the old woman clear away the dishes.

"I want to speak to you a minute," he said; and she followed him across
the passage, wondering.

He seated himself in his black horse-hair armchair, and she leaned
against the window, indifferently. She was impatient to be gone to the
library, to hunt for the book on North Dormer.

"See here," he said, "why ain't you at the library the days you're
supposed to be there?"

The question, breaking in on her mood of blissful abstraction, deprived
her of speech, and she stared at him for a moment without answering.

"Who says I ain't?"

"There's been some complaints made, it appears. Miss Hatchard sent for
me this morning----"

Charity's smouldering resentment broke into a blaze. "I know! Orma Fry,
and that toad of a Targatt girl and Ben Fry, like as not. He's going