He went to prison, and Priscilla went home, and continued to call herself by her maiden name--was she not as a maiden entitled to it? she asked. Six weeks later her mother died; and now...
Every incident in this year of dreadful unrest passed through the mind of the girl sitting at the window, breathing of the clear air of this April afternoon, and feeling that rest had come to her at last. In the force of that review of the bitter past fresh upon her she wondered how she had ever had the courage to do all that she had done since. How had she ever been able to hold up her head walking through the streets of Framsby? How had it been possible for her, within three months of her marriage, to go about as if the only event that had made a mark upon her life was the funeral of her mother? She remembered how she had felt when, on going into Framsby for the first time in her black dress, she saw the interested expression that came over the faces of all the people whom she knew by sight. Every one gazed at her with that same look of curiosity that came to them when a celebrity chanced to visit the town. And upon that very first day she had met one of the ladies of the best set walking with her two daughters. She had seen them nudge one another and pass on a whisper, and then a little curious smile while she was still a good way off. The smile--and it was a very detestable one--lasted until she had walked past them. Another of the same set was with a stranger on the opposite side of the street, and Priscilla saw her point her out furtively to the stranger, and then over the back of her hand, explain what was the exact nature of the interest that attached to her.
A third lady--she was the wife of the retired colonial civil servant--had shown worse taste still; for although she had never spoken a word to Priscilla in all her life, yet now she stopped her and expressed her deep sympathy for her in "that sad affair," asking her what her plans were for the future, and saying, "Of course you will leave this neighbourhood as soon as you can."
How had she borne it all, she now asked herself. How had she the courage to face those people who seemed to think that that blow which had fallen on her had somehow brought Framsby within measurable distance of being thought disreputable by the world at large? But she had not merely borne it all, she had nerved herself to appear in public more frequently than she had ever done, and she went to help her friend Rosa Caffyn at the entertainment the wife of the Rector of St. Mary's in the Meadows was getting up in the Rectory grounds for the new Nurses' Home.