en of all things the most innocent. Trevelyan had
sworn that if his wife received the man at Nuncombe Putney, he
would never see her again. She had seen him, and this oath would be
remembered, and there would be increased difficulties. But these
difficulties, whatever they might be, must be overcome. When he had
told himself this, then he allowed his mind to settle itself on Nora
Rowley.

Hitherto he had known Miss Rowley only as a fashionable girl living
with the wife of an intimate friend of his own in London. He had
never been staying in the same house with her. Circumstances had
never given to him the opportunity of assuming the manner of an
intimate friend, justifying him in giving advice, and authorising
him to assume that semi-paternal tone which is by far the easiest
preliminary to love-making. When a man can tell a young lady what
she ought to read, what she ought to do, and whom she ought to know,
nothing can be easier than to assure her that, of all her duties,
her first duty is to prefer himself to all the world. And any young
lady who has consented to receive lessons from such a teacher, will
generally be willing to receive this special lesson among others.
But Stanbury had hitherto had no such opportunities. In London Miss
Rowley had been a fashionable young lady, living in Mayfair, and he
had been,--well, anything but a fashionable young man. Nevertheless,
he had seen her often, had sat by her very frequently, was quite sure
that he loved her dearly, and had, perhaps, some self-flattering
idea in his mind that had he stuck to his honourable profession as a
barrister, and were he possessed of some comfortable little fortune
of his own, he might, perhaps, have been able, after due siege
operations, to make this charming young woman his own. Things were
quite changed now. For the present, Miss Rowley certainly could not
be regarded as a fashionable London young lady. The house in which he
would see her was, in some sort, his own. He would be sleeping under
the same roof with her, and would have all the advantages which such
a position could give him. He would have no difficulty now in asking,
if he should choose to ask; and he thought that she might be somewhat
softer, somewhat more likely to yield at Nuncombe Putney, than she
would have been in London. She was at Nuncombe in weak circumstances,
to a certain degree friendless; with none of the excitement of
society around her, with no elder sons buzzing abo