’Oh, Henry has gone.  He was only there one night.  I suppose he saw her, but I am not sure.’

‘Would not Miss Crawley tell you?’

‘I forgot to ask her.’  Mrs Grantly, at hearing this, expressed her surprise by opening wide her eyes.  He had gone all the way over to Framley on purpose to look after his son, and learn what were his doings, and when there he had forgotten to ask the person who could have given him better information than anyone else!  ’But it does not signify,’ continued the archdeacon; ’she said enough to me to make that of no importance.’

‘And what did she say?’

’She said that she would never consent to marry Henry as long as there was any suspicion abroad as to her father’s guilt.’

‘And you believe her promise?’

’Certainly I do; I do not doubt that in the least.  I put implicit confidence in her.  And I have promised her that if her father is acquitted—­I will withdraw my opposition.’

‘No!’

‘But I have.  And you would have done the same had you been there.’

‘I doubt that, my dear.  I am not so impulsive as you are.’

’You could not have helped yourself.  You would have felt yourself obliged to be equally generous with her.  She came up to me and she put her hand upon me—­’ ‘Psha!’ said Mrs Grantly.  ’But she did, my dear, and then she said, “I promise you that I will not become your son’s wife while people think papa stole this money.”  What else could I do?’

‘And is she pretty?’

‘Very pretty; very beautiful.’

‘And like a lady?’

‘Quite like a lady.  There is no mistake about that.’

‘And she behaved well?’

‘Admirably,’ said the archdeacon, who was in measure compelled to justify the generosity into which he had been betrayed by his feelings.

‘Then she is a paragon,’ said Mrs Grantly.

’I don’t know what you may call a paragon, my dear.  I say that she is a lady, and that she is extremely good-looking, and that she behaved very well.  I cannot say less in her favour.  I am sure you would not say less yourself, if you had been present.’

‘She must be a wonderful young woman.’

‘I don’t know anything about her being wonderful.’

’She must be wonderful when she has succeeded both with the son and with the father.’

‘I wish you had been there instead of me,’ said the archdeacon angrily.  Mrs Grantly very probably wished so also, feeling that in that case a more serene mode of business would have been adopted.  How keenly susceptible the archdeacon still was to the influences of feminine charms, no one knew better than Mrs Grantly, and whenever she became aware that he had been in this way seduced from the wisdom of his cooler judgment she always felt something akin to indignation against the seducer.  As for her husband, she probably told herself at such moments that he was an old goose.  ’If you had been there, and Henry with you, you would have made a great deal worse job of it than I have done,’ said the archdeacon.