"This unhappy business," she began, out of breath as she was. "If the
train had not gone out of the station just as I arrived, I should have
been with you before. Celia has doubtless told you. You will agree
with me, Maggie. He must be made to marry her at once for the sake of
the children--"
"But does he refuse to marry her?" Mrs. Hilbery inquired, with a
return of her bewilderment.
"He has written an absurd perverted letter, all quotations," Cousin
Caroline puffed. "He thinks he's doing a very fine thing, where we
only see the folly of it. . . . The girl's every bit as infatuated as
he is--for which I blame him."
"She entangled him," Aunt Celia intervened, with a very curious
smoothness of intonation, which seemed to convey a vision of threads
weaving and interweaving a close, white mesh round their victim.
"It's no use going into the rights and wrongs of the affair now,
Celia," said Cousin Caroline with some acerbity, for she believed
herself the only practical one of the family, and regretted that,
owing to the slowness of the kitchen clock, Mrs. Milvain had already
confused poor dear Maggie with her own incomplete version of the
facts.
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