“It is always possible,” said Mr. Masters.

“But you don’t think there is anybody?”

“It is very hard to say, Mr. Morton.”

“You don’t expect anything of that sort?”

Then the attorney broke forth into sudden confidence.  “To tell the truth then, Mr. Morton, I think there is somebody, though who it is I know as little as the baby unborn.  She sees nobody here at Dillsborough to be intimate with.  She isn’t one of those who would write letters or do anything on the sly.”

“But there is some one?”

“She told me as much herself.  That is, when I asked her she would not deny it.  Then I thought that perhaps it might be somebody at Cheltenham.”

“I think not.  She was there so short a time, Mr. Morton; and Lady Ushant would be the last person in the world to let such a thing as that go on without telling her parents.  I don’t think there was any one at Cheltenham.  She was only there a month.”

“I did fancy that perhaps that was one reason why she should want to go back.”

“I don’t believe it.  I don’t in the least believe it,” said Reginald enthusiastically.  “My aunt would have been sure to have seen it.  It would have been impossible without her knowledge.  But there is somebody?”

“I think so, Mr. Masters;—­and if she does go to Cheltenham perhaps Lady Ushant had better know.”  To this Reginald agreed, or half agreed.  It did not seem to him to be of much consequence what might be done at Cheltenham.  He felt certain that the lover was not there.  And yet who was there at Dillsborough?  He had seen those young Botseys about.  Could it possibly be one of them?  And during the Christmas vacation the rector’s scamp of a son had been home from Oxford; to whom Mary Masters had barely spoken.  Was it young Mainwaring?  Or could it be possible that she had turned an eye of favour on Dr. Nupper’s elegantly-dressed assistant.  There was nothing too monstrous for him to suggest to himself as soon as the attorney had left him.

But there was a young man in Dillsborough,—­one man at any rate young enough to be a lover,—­of whom Reginald did not think; as to whom, had his name been suggested as that of the young man to whom Mary’s heart had been given, he would have repudiated such a suggestion with astonishment and anger.  But now, having heard this from the girl’s father, he was again vexed, and almost as much disgusted as when he had first become aware that Larry Twentyman was a suitor for her hand.  Why should he trouble himself about a girl who was ready to fall in love with the first man that she saw about the place?  He tried to pacify himself by some such question as this, but tried in vain.

CHAPTER XXI

The Dinner at the Bush

Here is the letter which at his brother-in-law’s advice Lord Rufford wrote to Arabella: 

Rufford, 3 February, 1875.