“By myself?”

“Why not?  You and he have always been great friends, and he is a man who can speak more openly to a woman than to another man.”

“And what shall I say as to your absence?”

“Just the truth.  Tell him that I am remaining in the dining-room because I think his task will be easier with you in my absence.  He has got himself into some mess with that woman.”

“With Lady Ongar?”

“Yes; not that her name was mentioned between us, but I suppose it is so.”

“Horrible woman; wicked, wretched creature!”

“I know nothing about that, nor, as I suppose, do you.”

“My dear, you must have heard.”

“But if I had—­and I don’t know that I have—­I need not have believed.  I am told that she married an old man who is now dead, and I suppose she wants a young husband.”

“My dear!”

“If I were you, Cissy, I would say as little as might be about her.  She was an old friend of Harry’s—­”

“She jilted him when he was quite a boy; I know that—­long before he had seen our Florence.”

“And she is connected with him through his cousin.  Let her be ever so bad, I should drop that.”

“You can’t suppose, Theodore, that I want even to mention her name.  I’m told that nobody ever visits her.”

“She needn’t be a bit the worse on that account.  Whenever I hear that there is a woman whom nobody visits, I always feel inclined to go and pay my respects to her.”

“Theodore, how can you say so?”

“And that, I suppose, is just what Harry has done.  If the world and his wife had visited Lady Ongar, there would not have been all this trouble now.”

Mrs. Burton of course undertook the task which her husband assigned to her, though she did so with much nervous trepidation, and many fears lest the desired object should be lost through her own maladroit management.  With her, there was at least no doubt as to the thing to be done—­no hesitation as to the desirability of securing Harry Clavering for the Burton faction.  Everything in her mind was to be forgiven to Harry, and he was to be received by them all with open arms and loving caresses, if he would only abandon Lady Ongar altogether.  To secure her lover for Florence, was Mrs. Burton’s single and simple object.  She raised no questions now within her own breast as to whether Harry would make a good husband.  Any such question as that should have been asked and answered before he had been accepted at Stratton.  The thing to be done now was to bring Harry and Florence together, and—­since such terrible dangers were intervening—­to make them man and wife with as little further delay as might be possible.  The name of Lady Ongar was odious to her.  When men went astray in matters of love, it was within the power of Cecilia Burton’s heart to forgive them; but she could not pardon women that so sinned.  This countess had once jilted Harry, and that was