Chapter 43Mrs. Bridling was very late in getting home. On any other day she would have felt some apprehension on the score of Mr. Bridling’s temper, and would certainly have had to endure a prolonged dissertation on the duty of a wife, supported by quotations from the Scriptures, but tonight she had so much news to impart that she could count upon holding the floor. Mr. Bridling’s curiosity, whetted by rumour and far from being appeased by the snatches of news which had come his way, was in a really rampant condition. Wat Cooling’s aunt had rushed in with the bare statement that Geoffrey Taverner had committed suicide, and then rushed out again to give an irascible husband who was working overtime his belated supper. John Higgins hadn’t been near him. He was, in fact, what Mrs. Bridling ca
