‘He sent for Osborne and Roger?’ he asked, at length.

Molly answered, ‘Yes.’

Then there was a dead silence, which Molly thought would never end.  The squire had placed his two hands on the high chimney-piece, and stood leaning over the fire.

‘Roger would have been down from Cambridge on the 18th,’ said he.  ’And he has sent for Osborne, too!  Did he know,’—­he continued, turning round to Molly, with something of the fierceness she had anticipated in voice and look.  In another moment he had dropped his voice.  ’It is right, quite right.  I understand.  It has come at length.  Come! come!  Osborne has brought it on, though,’ with a fresh access of anger in his tones.  ‘She might have’ (some word Molly could not hear—­she thought it sounded like ‘lingered’) ’but for that.  I cannot forgive him; I cannot.’

And then he suddenly left the room.  While Molly sate there still, very sad in her sympathy with all, he put his head in again,—­

’Go to her, my dear; I cannot—­not just yet.  But I will soon.  Just this bit; and after that I won’t lose a moment.  You are a good girl.  God bless you!’

It is not to be supposed that Molly had remained all this time at the Hall without interruption.  Once or twice her father had brought her a summons home.  Molly thought she could perceive that he had brought it unwillingly; in fact, it was Mrs. Gibson that had sent for her, almost, as it were, to preserve a ‘right of way’ through her actions.

‘You shall come back to-morrow, or the next day,’ her father had said.  ’But mamma seems to think people will put a bad construction on your being so much way from home so soon after our marriage.’

’Oh, papa, I’m afraid Mrs. Hamley will miss me!  I do so like being with her.’

’I don’t think it is likely she will miss you as much as she would have done a month or two ago.  She sleeps so much now, that she is scarcely conscious of the lapse of time.  I’ll see that you come back here again in a day or two.’

So out of the silence and the soft melancholy of the Hall Molly returned into the all-pervading element of chatter and gossip at Hollingford.  Mrs. Gibson received her kindly enough.  Once’ she had a smart new winter bonnet ready to give her as a present; but she did not care to hear any particulars about the friends whom Molly had just left; and her few remarks on the state of affairs at the Hall jarred terribly on the sensitive Molly.

’What a time she lingers!  Your papa never expected she would last half so long after that attack.  It must be very wearing work to them all; I declare you look quite another creature since you went there.  One can only wish it mayn’t last, for their sakes.’

‘You don’t know how the squire values every minute,’ said Molly.