“I am glad to see you, Mr. Dale.  Pray, be seated.  Is it nature asserting her strength? or the efficacy of medicine?  I fancy it can’t be both.  You have brought us back your daughter?”

Mr. Dale sank into a chair, unable to resist the hand forcing him.

“No, Sir Willoughby, no.  I have not; I have not seen her since she came home this morning from Patterne.”

“Indeed?  She is unwell?”

“I cannot say.  She secludes herself.”

“Has locked herself in,” said Lady Busshe.

Willoughby threw her a smile.  It made them intimate.

This was an advantage against the world, but an exposure of himself to the abominable woman.

Dr. Middleton came up to Mr. Dale to apologize for not presenting his daughter Clara, whom he could find neither in nor out of the house.

“We have in Mr. Dale, as I suspected,” he said to Willoughby, “a stout ally.”

“If I may beg two minutes with you, Sir Willoughby,” said Mr. Dale.

“Your visits are too rare for me to allow of your numbering the minutes,” Willoughby replied.  “We cannot let Mr. Dale escape us now that we have him, I think, Dr. Middleton.”

“Not without ransom,” said the Rev. Doctor.

Mr. Dale shook his head.  “My strength, Sir Willoughby, will not sustain me long.”

“You are at home, Mr. Dale.”

“Not far from home, in truth, but too far for an invalid beginning to grow sensible of weakness.”

“You will regard Patterne as your home, Mr. Dale,” Willoughby repeated for the world to hear.

“Unconditionally?” Dr. Middleton inquired, with a humourous air of dissenting.

Willoughby gave him a look that was coldly courteous, and then he looked at Lady Busshe.  She nodded imperceptibly.  Her eyebrows rose, and Willoughby returned a similar nod.

Translated, the signs ran thus: 

“—­Pestered by the Rev. gentleman:—­I see you are.  Is the story I have heard correct?—­Possibly it may err in a few details.”

This was fettering himself in loose manacles.

But Lady Busshe would not be satisfied with the compliment of the intimate looks and nods.  She thought she might still be behind Mrs. Mountstuart; and she was a bold woman, and anxious about him, half-crazed by the riddle of the pot she was boiling in, and having very few minutes to spare.  Not extremely reticent by nature, privileged by station, and made intimate with him by his covert looks, she stood up to him.  “One word to an old friend.  Which is the father of the fortunate creature?  I don’t know how to behave to them.”  No time was afforded him to be disgusted with her vulgarity and audacity.

He replied, feeling her rivet his gyves:  “The house will be empty to-morrow.”

“I see.  A decent withdrawal, and very well cloaked.  We had a tale here of her running off to decline the honour, afraid, or on her dignity or something.”