Aurelia needed little persuasion to tell all that she had heard from Mrs. Dove, and he answered, “Thank you, my child, it tallies precisely with what the poor boy himself told me.”

“Then he has told his mother?  Will she not believe him?”

“It does not suit her to do so, and it is easy to say the girl will be altered by going to a good school.  In fact, there are many reasons more powerful with her than the virtue and happiness of her son,” he added bitterly.  “There’s the connection, forsooth.  As if Lady Aresfield were fit to bring up an honest man’s wife; and there’s the fortune to fill up the void she has made in the Delavie estates.”

“Can no one hinder it, sir?  Cannot you?”

“As a last resource the poor youth came hither to see whether the guardian whose wardship has hitherto been a dead letter, were indeed so utterly obdurate and helpless as had been represented.”

“And you have the power?”

“So far as his father’s will and the injunctions of his final letter to me can give it, I have full power.  My consent is necessary to his marriage while still a minor, and I have told my Lady I will never give it to his wedding a Mar.”

“I was sure of it; and it is not true that they will be able to do without it?

“Without it!  Have you heard any more?  You pause.  I see—­she wishes to declare me of unsound mind.  Is that what you mean?”

“So Nurse Dove said, sir,” faltered Aurelia; “but it seemed too wicked, too monstrous, to be possible.”

“I understand,” he said.  “I thought there was an implied threat in my sweet sister-in-law’s soft voice when she spoke of my determined misanthropy.  Well, I think we can guard against that expedient.  After all, it is only till my nephew comes of age, or till his stepfather returns, that we must keep the enchantress at bay.  Then the poor lad will be safe, providing always that she and her Colonel have not made a rake of him by that time.  Alas, what a wretch am I not to be able to do more for him!  Child, you have seen him?”

“I danced with him, sir, but I was too much terrified to look in his face.  And I saw his cocked hat over the thorn hedge.”

“Fancy free,” muttered Mr. Belamour.  “Fair exile for a cocked hat and diamond shoe-buckles!  You would not recognise him again, nor his voice?”

“No, sir.  He scarcely spoke, and I was attending to my steps.”

Mr. Belamour laughed, and then asked Aurelia for the passage in the Iliad where Venus carries off Paris in a cloud.  He thanked her somewhat absently, and then said,

“Dr. Godfrey said something of coming hither before he goes to his living in Dorsetshire.  May I ask of you the favour of writing and begging him to fix a day not far off, mentioning likewise that my sister-in-law has been here.”

To this invitation Dr. Godfrey replied that he would deviate from the slow progress of his family coach, and ride to Bowstead, spending two nights there the next week; and to Aurelia’s greater amazement, she was next requested to write a billet to the Mistresses Treforth in Mr. Belamour’s name, asking them to bestow their company on him for the second evening of Dr. Godfrey’s visit.