I said that I did not
like to leave my mother, on which he suggested that I should go
home to her every week-end, and he offered me a hundred a year,
which was certainly splendid pay. So it ended by my accepting,
and I went down to Chiltern Grange, about six miles from
Farnham. Mr. Carruthers was a widower, but he had engaged
a lady-housekeeper, a very respectable, elderly person, called
Mrs. Dixon, to look after his establishment. The child was
a dear, and everything promised well. Mr. Carruthers was very
kind and very musical, and we had most pleasant evenings
together. Every week-end I went home to my mother in town.
"The first flaw in my happiness was the arrival of the
red-moustached Mr. Woodley. He came for a visit of a week,
and oh, it seemed three months to me! He was a dreadful person,
a bully to everyone else, but to me something infinitely worse.
He made odious love to me, boasted of his wealth, said that if
I married him I would have the finest diamonds in London, and
finally, when I would have nothing to do with him, he seized me
in his arms one day after dinner -- he was hideously strong --
and he swore that he would not let me go until I had kissed him.
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