But he did not for a moment doubt that the visit had in itself been of all things the most innocent.  Trevelyan had sworn that if his wife received the man at Nuncombe Putney, he would never see her again.  She had seen him, and this oath would be remembered, and there would be increased difficulties.  But these difficulties, whatever they might be, must be overcome.  When he had told himself this, then he allowed his mind to settle itself on Nora Rowley.

Hitherto he had known Miss Rowley only as a fashionable girl living with the wife of an intimate friend of his own in London.  He had never been staying in the same house with her.  Circumstances had never given to him the opportunity of assuming the manner of an intimate friend, justifying him in giving advice, and authorising him to assume that semi-paternal tone which is by far the easiest preliminary to love-making.  When a man can tell a young lady what she ought to read, what she ought to do, and whom she ought to know, nothing can be easier than to assure her that, of all her duties, her first duty is to prefer himself to all the world.  And any young lady who has consented to receive lessons from such a teacher, will generally be willing to receive this special lesson among others.  But Stanbury had hitherto had no such opportunities.  In London Miss Rowley had been a fashionable young lady, living in Mayfair, and he had been well, anything but a fashionable young man.  Nevertheless, he had seen her often, had sat by her very frequently, was quite sure that he loved her dearly, and had, perhaps, some self-flattering idea in his mind that had he stuck to his honourable profession as a barrister, and were he possessed of some comfortable little fortune of his own, he might, perhaps, have been able, after due siege operations, to make this charming young woman his own.  Things were quite changed now.  For the present, Miss Rowley certainly could not be regarded as a fashionable London young lady.  The house in which he would see her was, in some sort, his own.  He would be sleeping under the same roof with her, and would have all the advantages which such a position could give him.  He would have no difficulty now in asking, if he should choose to ask; and he thought that she might be somewhat softer, somewhat more likely to yield at Nuncombe Putney, than she would have been in London.  She was at Nuncombe in weak circumstances, to a certain degree friendless; with none of the excitement of society around her, with no elder sons buzzing about her and filling her mind, if not her heart, with the glories of luxurious primogeniture.  Hugh Stanbury certainly did not dream that any special elder son had as yet been so attracted as to have made a journey to Nuncombe Putney on Nora’s behalf.  But should he on this account, because she would be, as it were, without means of defence from his attack, should he therefore take advantage of her weakness?  She would, of course, go back to her London life after