ervants," said
Priscilla. So that odious Bozzle had made his foul mission known
to them! Stanbury, however, thought it best to say nothing of
Bozzle,--not to acknowledge that he had ever heard of Bozzle. "I am
sure Mrs. Trevelyan does not mean you," said Priscilla.

"I do not know what I mean," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I am so harassed
and fevered by these suspicions that I am driven nearly mad." Then
she left the room for a minute and returned with two letters. "There,
Mr. Stanbury; I got that note from Colonel Osborne, and wrote to him
that reply. You know all about it now. Can you say that I was wrong
to see him?"

"I am sure that he was wrong to come," said Hugh.

"Wickedly wrong," said Priscilla, again.

"You can keep the letters, and show them to my husband," said Mrs.
Trevelyan; "then he will know all about it." But Stanbury declined to
keep the letters.

He was to remain the Sunday at Nuncombe Putney and return to London
on the Monday. There was, therefore, but one day on which he could
say what he had to say to Nora Rowley. When he came down to breakfast
on the Sunday morning he had almost made up his mind that he had
nothing to say to her. As for Nora, she was in a state of mind much
less near to any fixed purpose. She had told herself that she loved
this man,--had indeed done so in the clearest way, by acknowledging
the fact of her love to another suitor, by pleading to that other
suitor the fact of her love as an insuperable reason why he should
be rejected. There was no longer any doubt about it to her. When
Priscilla had declared that Hugh Stanbury was at the door, her heart
had gone into her mouth. Involuntarily she had pressed her hands to
her sides, and had held her breath. Why had he come there? Had he
come there for her? Oh! if he had come there for her, and if she
might dare to forget all the future, how sweet,--sweetest of all
things in heaven or earth,--might be an August evening with him among
the lanes! But she, too, had endeavoured to be very prudent. She
had told herself that she was quite unfit to be the wife of a poor
man,--that she would be only a burden round his neck, and not an aid
to him. And in so telling herself, she had told herself also that she
had been a fool not to accept Mr. Glascock. She should have dragged
out from her heart the image of this man who had never even whispered
a word of love in her ears, and should have constrained herself to
receive with affection a man in l