th you, and my great
attachment to your father and mother, I do not think
that the strictest martinet would tell you that you need
hesitate in the matter.

I have seen Mr. Trevelyan twice at the club, but he has
not spoken to me. Under such circumstances I could not of
course speak to him. Indeed, I may say that my feelings
towards him just at present are of such a nature as
to preclude me from doing so with any appearance of
cordiality.

Dear Emily,
Believe me now, as always, your affectionate friend,

FREDERIC OSBORNE.

When he read that letter over to himself a second time he felt quite
sure that he had not committed himself. Even if his friend were to
send the letter to her husband, it could not do him any harm. He was
aware that he might have dilated more on the old friendship between
himself and Sir Marmaduke, but he experienced a certain distaste to
the mention of things appertaining to years long past. It did not
quite suit him in his present frame of mind to speak of his regard in
those quasi-paternal terms which he would have used had it satisfied
him to represent himself simply as her father's friend. His language
therefore had been a little doubtful, so that the lady might, if
she were so minded, look upon him in that tender light in which her
husband had certainly chosen to regard him.

When the letter was handed to Mrs. Trevelyan, she at once took it
with her up to her own room, so that she might be alone when she read
it. The handwriting was quite familiar to her, and she did not choose
that even her sister should see it. She had told herself twenty times
over that, while living at Nuncombe Putney, she was not living under
the guardianship of Mrs. Stanbury. She would consent to live under
the guardianship of no one, as her husband did not choose to remain
with her and protect her. She had done no wrong, and she would submit
to no other authority, than that of her legal lord and master. Nor,
according to her views of her own position, was it in his power to
depute that authority to others. He had caused the separation, and
now she must be the sole judge of her own actions. In itself, a
correspondence between her and her father's old friend was in no
degree criminal or even faulty. There was no reason, moral, social,
or religious, why an old man, over fifty, who had known her all her
life, should not write to her. But yet she could not say aloud before
Mrs. Sta