It was a most awkward, a most unfortunate affair.

Notwithstanding this annoyance connected with and arising out of Ruth, he would not submit to hear her abused; and something in his manner impressed this on his mother, for she immediately changed her mode of attack.
"We may as well drop all dispute as to the young woman's manners; but I suppose you do not mean to defend your connexion with her; I suppose you are not so lost to all sense of propriety as to imagine it fit or desirable that your mother and this degraded girl should remain under the same roof, liable to meet at any hour of the day ?" She waited for an answer, but no answer came.
"I ask you a simple question; is it, or is it not desirable ?" "I suppose it is not," he replied, gloomily.
"And _I_ suppose, from your manner, that you think the difficulty would be best solved by my taking my departure, and leaving you with your vicious companion ?" Again no answer, but inward and increasing annoyance, of which Mr Bellingham considered Ruth the cause.

At length he spoke.
"Mother, you are not helping me in my difficulty.

I have no desire to banish you, nor to hurt you, after all your care for me.

Ruth has not been so much to blame as you imagine, that I must say; but I do not wish to see her again, if you can tell me how to arrange it otherwise, without behaving unhandsomely.