“Oh.  I know every thing.  I watch you in and out of the Lodge, and am aware of all you do.  But about the boat I promised you.  It is at my place, Lake Hall, near—­”

“Arthur. we must go.”

Arthur jumped up at once.  Gentle as it was, he had learned that that voice must never be disobeyed.

“I can’t stay, sir; mother calls me.  But I’ll tell papa we met you, and ask him to let me come and see you, if you will tell me your name.”

Sir Edwin hesitated.

“There is no necessity,” said Mrs. Grey.  “Arthur, I know this gentleman.  I myself shall tell your papa that we have met him here.  Good-morning, Sir Edwin Uniacke.”

She bowed with that perfect, repellant courtesy against which there is no appeal, and passed on; had she seen—­she did not, for she looked straight on and saw nothing—­but had she seen the look of mingled hate and love which darkened over Sir Edwin’s face, it might have terrified her.  But no, she was too courageous a woman to fear anything save doing wrong.

After a minute’s angry beating of his boot with his stick, the young man rose and followed them down the avenue, contriving, by dint of occasional conversation with Arthur, to keep along side of them the whole way as far as the bridge which connected the college grounds with the college buildings, and which was overlooked by the whole frontage of the Lodge.

With a vague sense of relief and protection, Christian glanced to the windows of her home, and there, at the open nursery casement, she saw a group, Phillis, Oliver, Letitia, and behind Letitia another person—­Miss Susan Bennett, who had come with a message from old Mrs. Ferguson, and whom, in her kindness, Mrs. Grey had sent to have a cup of tea in the nursery before returning to the village, where the girl said she was “quite comfortable.”  There she stood, she and Phillis, watching, as they doubtless had watched the whole interview, from the time Sir Edwin sat down, on the bench till his parting shake of the hand to Arthur, and farewell bow to herself, which bow was rather easy and familiar than distantly ceremonious.

Had he done it on purpose?  Had he too seen the group at the window, and, moved by a contemptible vanity, or worse, behaved so that these others ought notice his manner to Mrs. Grey, and put upon it any construction they pleased?

Yet what possible construction could be put upon it, even by the most ill-natured and malicious witnesses?  The college grounds were free to all; this meeting was evidently accidental and all that had passed thereat was a few words with the boy, which Arthur would be sure to repent at once; nor did Christian desire to prevent him.

It was a hard position.  She had done no wrong—­not the shadow of wrong—­and yet here was she, Christian Grey, discovered meeting and walking with a man whom her husband had distinctly forbidden the house—­discovered both by her servant, who, having an old servant’s love of prying into family affairs, no doubt knew of this prohibition, and by Miss Bennett, to whom she herself had said that Sir Edwin was a man unfit for any respectable woman’s acquaintance.