To this appeal she made no response, but sat awhile considering what she would say respecting Mountjoy Scarborough and his affairs.

“Am I to keep all this a secret?” she asked him at last.

“You shall consider that for yourself.  I have not exacted from you any silence on the matter.  You may tell whom you please, and I shall not consider that I have any ground of complaint against you.  Of course for my own sake I do not wish it to be told.  A great injury was done me, and I do not desire to be dragged into this, which would be another injury.  I suspect that Augustus Scarborough knows more than he pretends, and I do not wish to be brought into the mess by his cunning.  Whether you will tell your mother you must judge yourself.”

“I shall tell nobody unless you bid me.”  At that moment the door of the room was opened, and Mrs. Mountjoy entered, with a frown upon her brow.  She had not yet given up all hope that Mountjoy might return, and that the affairs of Tretton might be made to straighten themselves.

“Mamma, Mr. Annesley is here.”

“So I perceive, my dear.”

“I have come to your daughter to tell her how dearly I love her,” said Harry, boldly.

“Mr. Annesley, you should have come to me before speaking to my daughter.”

“Then I shouldn’t have seen her at all.”

“You should have left that as it might be.  It is not at all a proper thing that a young gentleman should come and address a young lady in this way behind her only parent’s back.”

“I asked for you, and I did not know that you would not be at home.”

“You should have gone away at once—­at once.  You know how terribly the family is cut up by this great misfortune to our cousin Mountjoy.  Mountjoy Scarborough has been long engaged to Florence.”

“No, mamma; no, never.”

“At any rate, Mr. Annesley knows all about it.  And that knowledge ought to have kept him away at the present moment.  I must beg him to leave us now.”

Then Harry took his hat and departed; but he had great consolation in feeling that Florence had not repudiated his love, which she certainly would have done had she not loved him in return.  She had spoken no word of absolute encouragement, but there had much more of encouragement than of repudiation in her manner.

CHAPTER VII.

Harry Annesley goes to Tretton.

Harry had promised to go down to Tretton, and when the time came Augustus Scarborough did not allow him to escape from the visit.  He explained to him that in his father’s state of health there would be no company to entertain him; that there was only a maiden sister of his father’s staying in the house, and that he intended to take down into the country with him one Septimus Jones, who occupied chambers on the same floor with him in London, and whom Annesley