Martha told him that Mrs.Goddard had a bad headache, but on inquiry found that she would see the squire.

He entered the drawing-room softly and went forward to greet her; she was sitting in a deep chair propped by cushions.
Mary Goddard had spent a miserable day.

The grey morning light seemed to reveal her troubles and fears in a new and more terrible aspect.

During the long hours of darkness it seemed as though those things were mercifully hidden which the strong glare of day must inevitably reveal, and when the night was fairly past she thought all the world must surely know that Walter Goddard had escaped and that his wife had seen him.
Hourly she expected a ringing at the bell, announcing the visit of a party of detectives on his track; every sound startled her and her nerves were strung to such a pitch that she heard with supernatural acuteness.
She had indeed two separate causes for fear.

The one was due to her anxiety for Goddard's safety; the other to her apprehensions for Nellie.
She had long determined that at all hazards the child must be kept from the knowledge of her father's disgrace, by being made to believe in his death.