When she asked him how soon she was to start he answered shortly, "You
ain't going," and shut himself up in the room he called his office;
and the next day the lady who kept the school at Starkfield wrote that
"under the circumstances" she was afraid she could not make room just
then for another pupil.
Charity was disappointed; but she understood. It wasn't the temptations
of Starkfield that had been Mr. Royall's undoing; it was the thought of
losing her. He was a dreadfully "lonesome" man; she had made that out
because she was so "lonesome" herself. He and she, face to face in that
sad house, had sounded the depths of isolation; and though she felt
no particular affection for him, and not the slightest gratitude, she
pitied him because she was conscious that he was superior to the people
about him, and that she was the only being between him and solitude.
Therefore, when Miss Hatchard sent for her a day or two later, to talk
of a school at Nettleton, and to say that this time a friend of hers
would "make the necessary arrangements," Charity cut her short with the
announcement that she had decided not to leave North Dormer.
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