The women are few, indeed, who cannot
resolve firmly, scheme patiently, and act promptly where the dearest
interests of their lives are concerned. Mrs. Vanstone--she has a right
now, remember, to that name--Mrs. Vanstone had more than the average
share of a woman's tenacity and a woman's tact; and she took all the
needful precautions, in those early days, which her husband's less ready
capacity had not the art to devise--precautions to which they were
largely indebted for the preservation of their secret in later times.
"Thanks to these safeguards, not a shadow of suspicion followed them
when they returned to England. They first settled in Devonshire, merely
because they were far removed there from that northern county in which
Mr. Vanstone's family and connections had been known. On the part of his
surviving relatives, they had no curious investigations to dread. He
was totally estranged from his mother and his elder brother. His married
sister had been forbidden by her husband (who was a clergyman) to hold
any communication with him, from the period when he had fallen into the
deplorable way of life which I have described as following his return
from Canada.
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