of the day, caring for nothing but sunshine, and an opportunity of fluttering her silly wings.  She had understood well what he meant.  Of course he was right to be cold to her if his heart was cold, but he need not have insulted her by his ill-concealed rebukes.  Had he been kind to her, he might have rebuked her as much as he liked.  She quite appreciated the delightful intimacy of a loving word of counsel from the man she loved—­how nice it is, as it were, to play at marriage, and to hear beforehand something of the pleasant weight of gentle marital authority.  But there had been nothing of that in his manner to her.  He had told her that she was dainty and had so told it her, as she thought, that she might, learn thereby, that under no circumstances would he have any other tale to tell her.  If he had no other tale, why had he not been silent?  Did he think that she was subject to his rebuke merely because she lived under his mother’s roof?  She would soon shew him that her residence at the Clock House gave him no such authority over her.  Then amidst her wrath and despair, she cried herself asleep.

While she was sobbing in bed, he was sitting, with a short, black pipe stuck into his mouth, on the corner of the churchyard wall opposite.  Before he had left the house he and Priscilla had spoken together for some minutes about Mrs Trevelyan.  ‘Of course she was wrong to see him’ said Priscilla.  ’I hesitate to wound her by so saying, because she has been ill-used, though I did tell her so, when she asked me.  She could have lost nothing by declining his visit.’

’The worst of it is that Trevelyan swears that he will never receive her again if she received him.’

‘He must unswear it’ said Priscilla, ’that is all.  It is out of the question that a man should take a girl from her home, and make her his wife, and then throw her off for so little of an offence as this.  She might compel him by law to take her back’

‘What would she get by that?’

‘Little enough’ said Priscilla; ’and it was little enough she got by marrying him.  She would have had bread, and meat, and raiment without being married, I suppose.’

‘But it was a love-match.’

’Yes and now she is at Nuncombe Putney, and he is roaming about in London.  He has to pay ever so much a year for his love-match, and she is crushed into nothing by it.  How long will she have to remain here, Hugh?’

’How can I say?  I suppose there is no reason against her remaining as far as you are concerned?’

’For me personally, none.  Were she much worse than I think she is, I should not care in the least for myself, if I thought that we were doing her good helping to bring her back.  She can’t hurt me.  I am so fixed, and dry, and established that nothing anybody says will affect me.  But mamma doesn’t like it.’

‘What is it she dislikes?’

’The idea that she is harbouring a married woman, of whom people say, at least, that she has a lover.’