On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson.  Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study.  Nora was full of anxiety.  Would he ask to see them to see her?  And why was he there so long?  ’No doubt he has brought a message from Mr Trevelyan,’ said her sister.  ’I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle’s house.’  Then, at last, both Mr Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting.  The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers.  She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable.  That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin, not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped.  And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury’s wife and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous.  And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her!

He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph’s with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all.  Trevelyan himself was upstairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner.  Mrs Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips.  What was he there for?  If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage?  But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife.  ‘I am to take Louey to him,’ said Hugh Stanbury, ‘if you will allow me.’

‘What to be taken away from me!’ exclaimed the mother.  But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour.  Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message—­no message either of love or of instruction.

‘Mr Stanbury,’ said the parson, ’has left me something in my hands for you.’  This ‘something’ was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200 pounds.  ’And he hasn’t said what I am to do with it?’ Emily asked of her uncle.  Mr Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head.  Mr Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child.