nothing finite in the most impassioned attitude a woman may take up.
In twelve months his girl-wife's recent infatuation might be as
distasteful to her mind as it was now to his own. In a few years
her very flesh would change--so said the scientific;--her spirit, so
much more ephemeral, was capable of changing in one. Betty was his,
and it became a mere question of means how to effect that change.

During the day Mrs. Dornell, having closed her husband's eyes,
returned to the Court. She was truly relieved to find Betty there,
even though on a bed of sickness. The disease ran its course, and
in due time Betty became convalescent, without having suffered
deeply for her rashness, one little speck beneath her ear, and one
beneath her chin, being all the marks she retained.

The Squire's body was not brought back to King's-Hintock. Where he
was born, and where he had lived before wedding his Sue, there he
had wished to be buried. No sooner had she lost him than Mrs.
Dornell, like certain other wives, though she had never shown any
great affection for him while he lived, awoke suddenly to his many
virtues, and zealously embraced his opinion about delaying Betty's
union with her husband, which she had formerly combated strenuously.
'Poor man! how right he was, and how wrong was I!' Eighteen was
certainly the lowest age at which Mr. Reynard should claim her
child--nay, it was too low! Far too low!

So desirous was she of honouring her lamented husband's sentiments
in this respect, that she wrote to her son-in-law suggesting that,
partly on account of Betty's sorrow for her father's loss, and out
of consideration for his known wishes for delay, Betty should not be
taken from her till her nineteenth birthday.