If I go, he will say I was afraid
of him, and ran away. Oh, how I wish he would come and find me!" He broke
out with a savage laugh.
"It is best to run away," one of us interposed sadly.
"Pendennis," he said with a tone of great softness, "your wife is a good
woman. God bless her! God bless her for all she has said and done--would
have done, if that villain had let her! Do you know the poor thing hasn't
a single friend in the world, not one, one--except me, and that girl they
are selling to Farintosh, and who does not count for much. He has driven
away all her friends from her: one and all turn upon her. Her relations,
of course; when did they ever fail to hit a poor fellow or a poor girl
when she was down? The poor angel! The mother who sold her comes and
preaches at her; Kew's wife turns up her little cursed nose and scorns
her; Rooster, forsooth, must ride high the horse, now he is married and
lives at Chanticlere, and give her warning to avoid my company or his! Do
you know the only friend she ever had was that old woman with the stick--
old Kew; the old witch whom they buried four months ago after nobbling
her money for the beauty of the family? She used to protect her--that old
woman; heaven bless her for it, wherever she is now, the old hag--a good
word won't do her any harm.
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