‘I can go,’ said he.  ’There is time for it.  It need not put off my marriage, to which of course I could not consent.  I do not know whom I could send.’

‘Moonier could go,’ said Lady Rowley, naming the courier.

’Yes he could go.  But it might be that he would return without the child, and then we should not forgive ourselves.  I will go, Lady Rowley.  After all, what does it signify?  I am a little old, I sometimes think, for this philandering.  You shall take his letter to your daughter, and I will explain it all to Caroline.’

Caroline had not a word to say.  She could only kiss him, and promise to make him what amends she could when he came back.  ’Of course you are right,’ she said.  ’Do you think that I would say a word against it, even though the marriage were to be postponed?’

’I should—­a good many words.  But I will be back in time for that, and will bring the boy with me.’

Mrs Trevelyan, when her husband’s letter was read to her, was almost overcome by the feelings which it excited.  In her first paroxysm of joy she declared that she would herself go to Siena, not for her child’s sake, but for that of her husband.  She felt at once that the boy was being given up because of the father’s weakness, because he felt himself to be unable to be a protector to his son, and her woman’s heart was melted with softness as she thought of the condition of the man to whom she had once given her whole heart.  Since then, doubtless, her heart had revolted from him.  Since that time there had come hours in which she had almost hated him for his cruelty to her.  There had been moments in which she had almost cursed his name because of the aspersion which it had seemed that he had thrown upon her.  But this was now forgotten, and she remembered only his weakness.  ‘Mamma,’ she said, ’I will go.  It is my duty to go to him.’  But Lady Rowley withheld her, explaining that were she to go, the mission might probably fail in its express purpose.  ‘Let Louey be sent to us first,’ said Lady Rowley, ’and then we will see what can be done afterwards.’

And so Mr Glascock started, taking with him a maid-servant who might help him with the charge of the child.  It was certainly very hard upon him.  In order to have time for his journey to Siena and back, and time also to go out to Casalunga, it was necessary that he should leave the Baths at five in the morning.  ’If ever there was a hero of romance, you are he!’ said Nora to him.

‘The heroes of life are so much better than the heroes of romance,’ said Caroline.

‘That is a lesson from the lips of the American Browning,’ said Mr Glascock.  ’Nevertheless, I think I would rather ride a charge against a Paynim knight in Palestine than get up at half-past four in the morning.’

‘We will get up too, and give the knight his coffee,’ said Nora.  They did get up, and saw him off; and when Mr Glascock and Caroline parted with a lover’s embrace, Nora stood by as a sister might have done.  Let us hope that she remembered that her own time was coming.