r, "this is all very true, but you have strayed from
the point. What makes you think she has an improper attachment?"

"Is it so very unnatural? He is the handsomest fellow about, she is the
loveliest woman; he is dark, she is fair; and they are thrown together
by circumstances. Another thing: I have always understood that women
admire the qualities they don't possess themselves--strength, for
instance. Now this parson is a Hercules. He took Sir Charles up like a
boy and carried him in his arms all the way from where he had the fit.
Lady Bassett walked beside them. Rely on it, a woman does not see one
man carry another so without making a comparison in favor of the
strong, and against the weak. But what am I talking about? They walk
like lovers, those two."

"What, hand in hand? he! he!"

"No, side by side; but yet like lovers for all that."

"You must have a good eye."

"I have a good opera-glass."

Mr. Wheeler smoked in silence.

"Well, but," said he, after a pause, "if this is so, all the better for
you. Don't you see that the lover will never really help her to get the
husband out of confinement? It is not in the nature of things. He may
struggle with his own conscience a bit, being a clergyman, but he won't
go too far; he won't break the law to get Sir Charles home, and so end
these charming duets with his lady-love."

"By Jove, you are right!" cried Bassett, convinced in his turn. "I say,
old fellow, two heads are better than one. I think we have got the
clew, between us. Yes, by Heaven! it is so; for the carriage used to be
out twice a week, but now she only goes about once in ten days.
By-and-by it will be once a fortnight, then once a month, and the
black-eyed rector will preach patience and resignation. Oh, it was a
master-stroke, clapping him in that asylum! All we have got to do now
is to let well alone. When she is over head and ears in love with
Angelo she will come to easy terms with us, and so I'll move across the
way. I shall never be happy till I live at Huntercombe, and administer
the estate."

The maid-servant brought him a note, and said it was from her mistress.
Bassett took it rather contemptuously, and said, "The little woman is
always in a fidget now when you come here. She is all for peace." He
read the letter. It ran thus:

"DEAREST RICHARD--I implore you to do nothing more to hurt Sir Charles.
It is wicked, and it is useless. God has had pity on Lady Bassett, and
have you pit