‘We all wish it,’ said Priscilla.

Then Nora spoke.  ’But what could we do, Mr Stanbury?  It seemed so natural that he should call when he was in the neighbourhood.  We have known him so long; and how could we refuse to see him?’

‘I will not let any one think that I’m afraid to see any man on earth,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.  ’If he had ever in his life said a word that he should not have said, a word that would have been an insult, of course it would have been different.  But the notion of it is preposterous.  Why should I not have seen him?’

‘I think he was wrong to come,’ said Hugh.

‘Of course he was wrong, wickedly wrong,’ said Priscilla.

Stanbury, finding that the subject was openly discussed between them, declared plainly the mission that had brought him to Nuncombe.  ’Trevelyan heard that he was coming, and asked me to let him know the truth,’

‘Now you can tell him the truth,’ said Mrs Trevelyan, with something of indignation in her tone, as though she thought that Stanbury had taken upon himself a task of which he ought to be ashamed.

‘But Colonel Osborne came specially to pay a visit to Cockchaffington,’ said Nora, ‘and not to see us.  Louis ought to know that.’

‘Nora, how can you demean yourself to care about such trash?’ said Mrs Trevelyan.  ’Who cares why he came here?  His visit to me was a thing of course.  If Mr Trevelyan disapproves of it, let him say so, and not send secret messengers.’

‘Am I a secret messenger?’ said Hugh Stanbury.

‘There has been a man here, inquiring of the servants,’ said Priscilla.  So that odious Bozzle had made his foul mission known to them!  Stanbury, however, thought it best to say nothing of Bozzle, not to acknowledge that he had ever heard of Bozzle.  ’I am sure Mrs Trevelyan does not mean you,’ said Priscilla.

‘I do not know what I mean,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

’I am so harassed and fevered by these suspicions that I am driven nearly mad.’  Then she left the room for a minute and returned with two letters.  ’There, Mr Stanbury; I got that note from Colonel Osborne, and wrote to him that reply.  You know all about it now.  Can you say that I was wrong to see him?’

‘I am sure that he was wrong to come,’ said Hugh.

‘Wickedly wrong,’ said Priscilla, again.

‘You can keep the letters, and show, them to my husband,’ said Mrs Trevelyan; ‘then he will know all about it.’  But Stanbury declined to keep the letters.

He was to remain the Sunday at Nuncombe Putney and return to London on the Monday.  There was, therefore, but one day on which he could say what he had to say to Nora Rowley.  When he came down to breakfast on the Sunday morning he had almost made up his mind that he had nothing to say to her.  As for Nora, she was in a state of mind much less near to any fixed purpose.  She had told herself that she loved this man—­had indeed done so in the clearest