— 38 —The two ladies lived very quietly at Brighton in a small house on the Parade that Susan had hired, with Curtis as personal maid, and three other servants from Clapham to run the modest establishment. Susan had shown no great surprise at Mrs. Sacret’s return to the Old Priory; seemed to listen with much attention to her smooth excuses “that she really could not go abroad and leave her dear friend alone at such a sad time and therefore she had postponed her plans.”
The young widow was melancholy and took little interest in anything. “I knew you would return,” was all the comment she made on the swift reappearance of her companion. She even accepted without vexation Mrs. Sacret’s story of having lost the luggage she had sent in advance to Dover and allowed her to replenish her clothes
