Hoppet Hall it would still have been impossible.  But this exaltation of her idol altogether out of her reach was an added injustice.  She could remember, not the person, but all the recent memories of the old Squire, the veneration with which he was named, the masterdom which was attributed to him, the unequalled nobility of his position in regard to Dillsborough.  His successor would be to her as some one crowned, and removed by his crown altogether from her world.  Then she pictured to herself the stately dame who would certainly come, and she made fresh resolutions with a sore heart.

“I don’t know why you should be so very little with me,” said Lady Ushant, almost whining.  “When I was at Cheltenham you wanted to come to me.”

“There are so many things to be done at home.”

“And yet you would have come to Cheltenham.”

“We were in great trouble then, Lady Ushant.  Of course I would like to be with you.  You ought not to scold me, because you know how I love you”

“Has the young man gone away altogether now, Mary?”

“Altogether.”

“And Mrs. Masters is satisfied?”

“She knows it can never be, and therefore she is quiet about it.”

“I was sorry for that young man, because he was so true.”

“You couldn’t be more sorry than I was, Lady Ushant.  I love him as though he was a brother.  But—­”

“Mary, dear Mary, I fear you are in trouble.”

“I think it is all trouble,” said Mary, rushing forward and hiding her face in her old friend’s lap as she knelt on the ground before her.  Lady Ushant longed to ask a question, but she did not dare.  And Mary Masters longed to have one friend to whom she could confide her secret,—­but neither did she dare.

On the next day, very early in the morning, there came a note from Mrs. Morton to Mr. Masters, the attorney.  Could Mr. Masters come out on that day to Bragton and see Mrs. Morton.  The note was very particular in saying that Mrs. Morton was to be the person seen.  The messenger who waited for an answer, brought back word that Mr. Masters would be there at noon.  The circumstance was one which agitated him considerably, as he had not been inside the house at Bragton since the days immediately following the death of the old Squire.  As it happened, Lady Ushant was going to Bragton on the same day, and at the suggestion of Mr. Runciman, whose horses in the hunting season barely sufficed for his trade, the old lady and the lawyer went together.  Not a word was said between them as to the cause which took either of them on their journey, but they spoke much of the days in which they had known each other, when the old Squire was alive, and Mr. Masters thanked Lady Ushant for her kindness to his daughter.  “I love her almost as though she were my own,” said Lady Ushant.  “When I am dead she will have half of what I have got.”

“She will have no right to expect that,” said the gratified father.