‘I suppose so,’ said Sir Marmaduke, shaking his head.

’When I went over to call on Emily that time I was at Cockchaffington, you know, when Trevelyan made himself such a d fool, I found the mother and sister living in a decentish house enough; but it wasn’t their house.’

‘Not their own, you mean?’

’It was a place that Trevelyan had got this young man to take for Emily, and they had merely gone there to be with her.  They had been living in a little bit of a cottage; a sort of place that any any ploughman would live in.  Just that kind of cottage.’

‘Goodness gracious!’

‘And they’ve gone to another just like it so I’m told.’

‘And can’t he do anything better for them than that?’ asked Sir Marmaduke.

’I know nothing about him.  I have met him, you know.  He used to be with Trevelyan; that was when Nora took a fancy for him, of course.  And I saw him once down in Devonshire, when I must say he behaved uncommonly badly, doing all he could to foster Trevelyan’s stupid jealousy.’

‘He has changed his mind about that, I think.’

’Perhaps he has; but he behaved very badly then.  Let him shew up his income; that, I take it, is the question in such a case as this.  His father was a clergyman, and therefore I suppose he must be considered to he a gentleman.  But has he means to support a wife, and keep up a house in London?  If he has not, that is an end to it, I should say.’

But Sir Marmaduke could not see his way to any such end, and, although he still looked black upon Nora, and talked to his wife of his determination to stand no contumacy, and hinted at cursing, disinheriting, and the like, he began to perceive that Nora would have her own way.  In his unhappiness he regretted this visit to England, and almost thought that the Mandarins were a pleasanter residence than London.  He could do pretty much as he pleased there, and could live quietly, without the trouble which encountered him now on every side.

Nora, immediately on her return to London, had written a note to Hugh, simply telling him of her arrival and begging him to come and see her.  ‘Mamma,’ she said, ’I must see him, and it would be nonsense to say that he must not come here.  I have done what I have said I would do, and you ought not to make difficulties.’  Lady Rowley declared that Sir Marmaduke would be very angry if Hugh were admitted without his express permission.  ‘I don’t want to do anything in the dark,’ continued Nora, ’but of course I must see him.  I suppose it will be better that he should come to me than that I should go to him?’ Lady Rowley quite understood the threat that was conveyed in this.  It would be much better that Hugh should come to the hotel, and that he should be treated then as an accepted lover.  She had come to that conclusion.  But she was obliged to vacillate for awhile between her husband and her daughter.  Hugh came of course, and Sir Marmaduke, by his wife’s advice, kept out of the way.  Lady Rowley, though she was at home, kept herself also out of the way, remaining above with her two other daughters.  Nora thus achieved the glory and happiness of receiving her lover alone.