Sandal and
Charlotte to their home. And he was on the point of making a proposition
of this kind, when it was discovered that Julius and his wife had
silently taken their departure.
"It is a hopeless fight against destiny," said Julius. "When the purse
is empty, any cause is weak. I have barely money to take us to Calcutta,
Sophia. It is very disagreeable to go there, of course; but my father
advised this step, and I shall remind him of it. He ought, therefore, to
re-arrange my future. It is hard enough for me to have lost so much
time carrying out his plans. And I should write a letter to your mother
before you go, if I were you, Sophia. It is your duty. She ought to have
her cruel behavior to you pointed out to her."
Sophia did her duty. She wrote a very clever letter, which really did
make both her mother and sister wretchedly uncomfortable. Charlotte held
it in her hand with a heartache, wondering whether she had indeed been
as envious and unjust and unkind as Sophia felt her to have been; and
Mrs. Sandal buried her face in her sofa pillow, and had a cry over her
supposed partiality and want of true motherly feeling. "They had been so
misunderstood, Julius and she,--wilfully misunderstood, she feared; and
they were being driven to a foreign land, a deadly foreign land, because
Charlotte and Stephen had raised against them a social hatred they had
not the heart to conquer.
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