It was a shameful secret, never even referred to.

But Mrs.Lessways had unmistakably though indirectly referred to it when in anger she had said to her daughter aged twenty: "I suppose her ladyship will be consulting her own lawyer next!" Hilda had understood, and that was why she had blushed.
And now, as she turned from Lessways Street into the Oldcastle Road, on her way to the centre of the town, she experienced almost exactly the intense excitement of the reckless and supercilious child in quest of its dinner.

The only difference was that the recent reconciliation had inspired her with a certain negligent compassion for her mother, with a curious tenderness that caused her to wonder at herself.
II The Market Square of Turnhill was very large for the size of the town.
The diminutive town hall, which in reality was nothing but a watch-house, seemed to be a mere incident on its irregular expanse, to which the two-storey shops and dwellings made a low border.

Behind this crimson, blue-slated border rose the loftier forms of a church and a large chapel, situate in adjacent streets.

The square was calm and almost deserted in the gloom.