‘I will leave you to-day,’ he said, more like his old self.  ’But there are other things that we must speak of.  What of Emily’s practical position?’

’I don’t think we need trouble about that.  Mr. Baxendale tells me he has no doubt that the house in Barnhill can be sold at all events for a sum that will leave them at ease for the present.  As soon as Mrs. Hood gets better, they must both go away.  You can trust me to do what can be done.’

’It is my fear that Emily will find it difficult to accept your kindness.’

‘It will require tact.  Only experience can show what my course must be.’

’I sincerely hope the house will be sold.  Otherwise, the outlook is deplorable.’

’I assure you it will be.  My husband does not give up anything he has once put his hand to.’

‘I shall keep my own counsel at home,’ Wilfrid said.

‘Do so, certainly.  And you will return to Oxford?’

’I think so.  I shall find it easier to live there—­if, indeed, I can live anywhere.’

‘I had rather you hadn’t added that,’ said Mrs. Baxendale with good-natured reproof.  ’You know that you will only work the harder just to forget your trouble.  That, depend upon it, is the only way of killing the time, as you said; if we strike at him in other ways we only succeed in making him angry.’

‘Another apophthegm,’ said Wilfrid, with an attempt at brightness.  ’You are the first woman I have known who has that gift of neatness in speech.’

’And you are the first man who ever had discernment enough to compliment me on it.  After that, do you think I shall desert your cause?’

Wilfrid made his preparations forthwith, and decided upon a train early in the afternoon.  At luncheon, Mr. Baxendale was full of good-natured regrets that his visit could not be prolonged till the time of the election—­now very near.

‘When your constituents have sent you to Westminster,’ said Wilfrid, ’I hope you will come and report to me the details of the fight?’

So he covered his retreat and retrieved in Mrs. Baxendale’s eyes his weakness of the morning.  She took him to the station in her brougham, but did not go on to the platform.  Their parting was very like that of lovers, for it ended with mutual promises to ‘write often.’  Mrs. Baxendale was down-hearted as she drove home—­in her a most unusual thing.

Two days later she went to Banbrigg, carrying the satisfactory news that at last a sale of the Barnhill property had been negotiated.  To Emily this intelligence gave extreme relief; it restored her independence.  Having this subject to speak of made the meeting easier on both sides than it could otherwise have been.  Emily was restlessly anxious to take upon herself the task of nursing her mother; with the maid to help her, she declared herself able to bear all responsibilities, and persisted so strongly that Mrs. Baxendale had no choice but to assent to the nurse who had remained being withdrawn.  She could understand the need of activity which possessed the girl, but had grave fears of the result of an undertaking so disproportioned to her strength.