— 22 —Methodically and taking pleasure in her task, the missionary’s widow prepared to leave the Old Priory. She had told the servants and Dr. Virtue that she had to visit an uncle in Jamaica, who was failing in years, and that she expected to take up missionary work again in that remote island. To Mr. Rue she merely announced that she was “going abroad as companion to the widow of a Church of England clergyman.” She did not expect him to be interested, or even to credit this statement. She accepted demurely his relieved gratitude. He offered her a handsome money present that she accepted serenely. “As a proof of your trust in me,” she remarked.
Two bank notes for fifty pounds each in a purse of knitted orange silk—such was the price that Martin Rue had gladly paid for her departure. She
