‘Is she to be turned out because people are slanderers?’

’Why should mamma suffer because this woman, who is a stranger to her, has been imprudent?  If she were your wife, Hugh—­’

‘God forbid!’

’If we were in any way bound to her, of course we would do our duty.  But if it makes mamma unhappy I am sure you will not press it.  I think Mrs Merton has spoken to her.  And then Aunt Stanbury has written such letters!’

‘Who cares for Aunt Jemima?’

’Everybody cares for her except you and I. And now this man who has been here asking the servant questions has upset her greatly.  Even your coming has done so, knowing, as she does, that you have come, not to see us, but to make inquiries about Mrs Trevelyan.  She is so annoyed by it, that she does not sleep.

‘Do you wish her to be taken away at once?’ asked Hugh almost in an angry tone.

’Certainly not.  That would be impossible.  We have agreed to take her, and must bear with it.  And I would not have her moved from this, if I thought that if she stayed awhile it might be arranged that she might return from us direct to her husband.’

‘I shall try that, of course now.’

’But if he will not have her, if he be so obstinate, so foolish, and so wicked, do not leave her here longer than you can help.  Then Hugh explained that Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were to be in England in the spring, and that it would be very desirable that the poor woman should not be sent abroad to look for a home before that.  ’If it must be so, it must’ said Priscilla.  ‘But eight months is a long time.’

Hugh went out to smoke his pipe on the church-wall in a moody, unhappy state of mind.  He had hoped to have done so well in regard to Mrs Trevelyan.  Till he had met Colonel Osborne, he felt sure, almost sure, that she would have refused to see that pernicious trouble of the peace of families.  In this he found that he had been disappointed; but he had not expected that Priscilla would have been so much opposed to the arrangement which he had made about the house, and then he had been buoyed up by the anticipation of some delight in meeting Nora Rowley.  There was, at any rate, the excitement of seeing her to keep his spirits from flagging.  He had seen her, and had had the opportunity of which he had so long been thinking.  He had seen her and had had every possible advantage on his side.  What could any man desire better than the privilege of walking home with the girl he loved through country lanes of a summer evening?  They had been an hour together or might have been, had he chosen to prolong the interview.  But the words which had been spoken between them had had not the slightest interest unless it were that they had tended to make the interval between him and her wider than ever.  He had asked her—­he thought that he had asked—­whether it would grieve her to abandon that delicate, dainty mode of life to which she had been accustomed; and she had replied that she would never abandon it of her own accord.  Of course she had intended him to take her at her word.