She had thought, after the engagement was announced, of rushing up to London and insisting on seeing Hugh; but always, after she had looked out the trains, her courage had shrunk back at the last moment.  There had been a look on Hugh’s face during that last momentary meeting which she could not nerve herself to see again.  She had been to London already once to see him, without success.

She knew Rachel was at the Palace at Southminster nursing Hester, and twice she had ordered the carriage to drive over to see her, and make a desperate appeal to her to give up Hugh.  But she knew that she should fail.  And Rachel would triumph over her.  Women always did over a defeated rival.  Lady Newhaven had not gone.  The frightful injustice of it all wrung Lady Newhaven’s heart to the point of agony.  To see her own property deliberately stolen from her in the light of day, as it were, in the very market-place, before everybody, without being able to raise a finger to regain him!  It was intolerable.  For she loved Hugh as far as she was capable of loving anything.  And her mind had grown round the idea that he was hers as entirely as a tree will grow round a nail fastened into it.

And now he was to marry Rachel, and soon.  Let no one think they know pain until they know jealousy.

But when the Bishop sent up a second time, asking to see her on business, she consented.

It was too soon to see callers, of course.  But a Bishop was different.  And how could she refuse to admit him when she had admitted that odious Captain Pratt only four days before.  She hoped no one would become aware of that fact.  It was as well for her that she could not hear the remarks of Selina and Ada Pratt, as they skated on the frozen meadows with half, not the better-half, of Middleshire.

“Poor Vi Newhaven.  Yes, she won’t see a creature.  She saw Algy for a few minutes last week, but then he is an old friend, and does not count.  He said she was quite heart-broken.  He was quite upset himself.  He was so fond of Ted Newhaven.”

The Bishop would not even sit down.  He said he was on the way to a confirmation, and added that he had been entrusted with a letter for her, and held it towards her.

“It is my husband’s handwriting,” she said, drawing back, with instinctive fear.

“It is from your husband,” said the Bishop, gently, softening somewhat at the sight of the ravages which despair had made in the lovely face since he had last seen it.  “He asked me to give it into your own hand a month after his death.”

“Then he told you that—­”

“He told me nothing, and I wish to hear nothing.”

“I should like to confess all to you, to feel myself absolved,” said Lady Newhaven in a low voice, the letter in her trembling hand.

He looked at her, and he saw that she would not say all.  She would arrange details to suit herself, and would omit the main point altogether, whatever it might be, if, as it was more than probable, it told against herself.  He would at least save her from the hypocrisy of a half-confession.