Then restlessness again came upon her.  One day she all but declared her disappointment that the Mumfords saw so few people.  Emmeline, repeating this to her husband, avowed a certain compunction.

’I almost feel that I deliberately misled her.  You know, Clarence, in our first conversation I mentioned the Kirby Simpsons and Mrs. Hollings, and I feel sure she remembers.  It wouldn’t be nice to be taking her money on false pretences, would it?’

’Oh, don’t trouble.  It’s quite certain she has someone in mind whom she means to marry before long.’

’I can’t help thinking that.  But I don’t know who it can be.  She had a letter this morning in a man’s writing, and didn’t speak of it.  It wasn’t Mr. Cobb.’

Louise, next day, put a point-blank question.

‘Didn’t you say that you knew some people at West Kensington?’

‘Oh, yes,’ answered Emmeline, carelessly.  ’The Kirby Simpsons.  They’re away from home.’

’I’m sorry for that.  Isn’t there anyone else we could go and see, or ask over here?’

‘I think it very likely Mr. Bilton will come down in a few days.’

Louise received Mr. Bilton’s name with moderate interest.  But she dropped the subject, and seemed to reconcile herself to domestic pleasures.

It was on the evening of this day that Emmeline received a letter which gave her much annoyance.  Her sister, Mrs. Grove, wrote thus: 

’How news does get about!  And what ridiculous forms it takes!  Here is Mrs. Powell writing to me from Birmingham, and she says she has heard that you have taken in the daughter of some wealthy parvenu, for a consideration, to train her in the ways of decent society!  Just the kind of thing Mrs. Powell would delight in talking about—­ she is so very malicious.  Where she got her information I can’t imagine.  She doesn’t give the slightest hint.  “They tell me”—­I copy her words—­“that the girl is all but a savage, and does and says the most awful things.  I quite admire Mrs. Mumford’s courage.  I’ve heard of people doing this kind of thing, and I always wondered how they got on with their friends.”  Of course I have written to contradict this rubbish.  But it’s very annoying, I’m sure.’

Mumford was angry.  The source of these fables must be either Bilton or Dunnill, yet he had not thought either of them the kind of men to make mischief.  Who else knew anything of the affair?  Searching her memory, Emmeline recalled a person unknown to her, a married lady, who had dropped in at Mrs. Grove’s when she and Louise were there.

’I didn’t like her—­a supercilious sort of person.  And she talked a great deal of her acquaintance with important people.  It’s far more likely to have come from her than from either of those men.  I shall write and tell Molly so.’