Moreover, it frightened him.  In certain circumstances he might have found his advantage in fostering such a mesalliance.  But here, not only had he reason to think himself distasteful to the young lady whose elevation was in prospect, but he retained too vivid a recollection of Lady Dunborough to hope that that lady would forget or forgive him!  Moreover, at the present moment he was much straitened for money; difficulties of long standing were coming to a climax.  Venuses and Titian copies have to be paid for.  The tutor, scared by the prospect, to which he had lately opened his eyes, saw in early preferment or a wealthy pupil his only way of escape.  And in Lady Dunborough lay his main hope, which a catastrophe of this nature would inevitably shatter.  That evening he sent his servant to learn what he could of the Mastersons’ movements.

The man brought word that they had left the town that morning; that the cottage was closed, and the key had been deposited at the college gates.

‘Did you learn their destination?’ the tutor asked, trimming his fingernails with an appearance of indifference.

The servant said he had not; and after adding the common gossip of the court, that Masterson had left money, and the widow had gone to her own people, concluded, ’But they were very close after Masterson’s death, and the neighbours saw little of them.  There was a lawyer in and out, a stranger; and it is thought he was to marry the girl, and that that had set them a bit above their position, sir.’

‘That will do,’ said the tutor.  ‘I want to hear no gossip,’ And, hiding his joy, he went off hot-foot to communicate the news to his pupil.

But Mr. Dunborough laughed in his face.  ‘Pooh!’ he said.  ’I know where they are.’

‘You know?  Then where are they?’ Thomasson asked.

‘Ah, my good Tommy, that is telling.’

‘Well,’ Mr. Thomasson answered, with an assumption of dignity.  ’At any rate they are gone.  And you must allow me to say that I am glad of it—­for your sake!’

‘That is as may be,’ Mr. Dunborough answered.  And he took his first airing in a sedan next day.  After that he grew so reticent about his affairs, and so truculent when the tutor tried to sound him, that Mr. Thomasson was at his wits’ end to discern what was afoot.  For some time, however, he got no clue.  Then, going to Dunborough’s rooms one day, he found them empty, and, bribing the servant, learned that his master had gone to Wallingford.  And the man told him his suspicions.  Mr. Thomasson was aghast; and by that day’s post—­after much searching of heart and long pondering into which scale he should throw his weight—­he despatched the following letter to Lady Dunborough: