Lady Ushant had herself driven to Hoppet Hall, and there took up her residence with her nephew.  Every other day Mr. Runciman’s fly came for her and carried her backwards and forwards to Bragton.  On those occasions she would remain an hour with the invalid, and then would go back again, never even seeing Mrs. Morton, though always seen by her.  And twice after this banishment Reginald walked over.  But on the second occasion there was a scene.  Mrs. Morton to whom he had never spoken since he was a boy, met him in the hall and told him that his visits only disturbed his sick cousin.  “I certainly will not disturb him,” Reginald had said.  “In the condition in which he is now he should not see many people,” rejoined the lady.  “If you will ask Dr. Fanning he will tell you the same.”  Dr. Fanning was the London doctor who came down once a week, whom it was improbable that Reginald should have an opportunity of consulting.  But he remembered or thought that he remembered, that his cousin had been fretful and ill-pleased during his last visit, and so turned himself round and went home without another word.

“I am afraid there may be—­I don’t know what,” said Lady Ushant to him in a whisper the next morning.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what I mean.  Perhaps I ought not to say a word.  Only so much does depend on it!”

“If you are thinking about the property, aunt, wipe it out of your mind.  Let him do what he pleases and don’t think about it.  No one should trouble their minds about such things.  It is his, to do what he pleases with it.”

“It is not him that I fear, Reginald.”

“If he chooses to be guided by her, who shall say that he is wrong?  Get it out of your mind.  The very thinking about such things is dirtiness!” The poor old lady submitted to the rebuke and did not dare to say another word.

Daily Lady Ushant would send over for Mary Masters, thinking it cruel that her young friend should leave her alone and yet understanding in part the reason why Mary did not come to her constantly at Hoppet Hall.  Poor Mary was troubled much by these messages.  Of course she went now and again.  She had no alternative but to go, and yet, feeling that the house was his house, she was most unwilling to enter it.  Then grew within her a feeling, which she could not analyse, that he had ill-used her.  Of course she was not entitled to his love.  She would acknowledge to herself over and over again that he had never spoken a word to her which could justify her in expecting his love.  But why had he not let her alone?  Why had he striven by his words and his society to make her other than she would have been had she been left to the atmosphere of her stepmother’s home?  Why had he spoken so strongly to her as to that young man’s love?  And then she was almost angry with him because, by a turn in the wheel of fortune, he was about to become, as she thought, Squire of Bragton.  Had he remained simply Mr. Morton of