It was impossible for them to stay any longer at Scarby.

The place was haunted by the presence and the voice of scandalous rumour.

Anne had the horrible idea that it had been also a haunt of Lady Cayley, of the infamy itself.
The week-old honeymoon looked at them out of its clouds with such an aged, sinister, and disastrous aspect that they resolved to get away from it.

For the sake of appearances, they spent another week of aimless wandering on the East coast, before returning to the town where an unintelligible fate had decided that Majendie should have a business he detested, and a house.
Anne had once asked herself what she would do if she were told that she would have to spend all her life in Scale on Humber.

Scale is prevailingly, conspicuously commercial.