An Unnatural Mother

Next morning a rumor set out from three distinct centers, Thorneytoft,
Meriden, and "The Cross-Roads," to the effect that Tyson had quarreled
seriously with Stanistreet. His wife, as might be imagined, was the
cause. After a hot dispute, in which her name had been rather freely
bandied about, it seems that Tyson had picked the Captain up by the
scruff of the neck and tumbled him out of the house.

By the evening the scandal was blazing like a fire.

Mrs. Nevill Tyson was undoubtedly a benefactor to her small public. She
had roused the intelligence of Drayton Parva as it had never been roused
before. Conjecture followed furtively on her footsteps, and inference met
her and stared her in the face. No circumstance, not even Sir Peter's
innocent admiration, was too trivial to furnish a link in the chain of
evidence against her. Not that a breath of slander touched Sir Peter. He,
poor old soul, was simply regarded as the victim of diabolical
fascinations.

After the discomfiture of Stanistreet, Mrs. Nevill Tyson's movements were
watched with redoubled interest. Her appearances were now strictly
limited to those large confused occasions which might be considered open
events--Drayton races, church, the hunt ball, and so on. Only the casual
stranger, languishing in magnificent boredom by Miss Batchelor's side,
followed Mrs. Nevill Tyson with a kindly eye.

"Who is that pretty little woman in the pink gown?" he would ask in his
innocence.

"Oh, that is Mrs. Nevill Tyson. She is pretty," would be the answer,
jerked over Miss Batchelor's shoulder. (That habit was growing on her.) "And who or what is Mrs. Nevill Tyson?"