Hugh Stanbury, when he reached the parsonage, found no difficulty in making his way into the joint presence of Mrs Outhouse, Mrs Trevelyan, and Nora. He was recognised by the St. Diddulph’s party as one who had come over to their side, as a friend of Trevelyan who had found himself constrained to condemn his friend in spite of his friendship, and was consequently very welcome. And there was no difficulty about giving the address. The ladies wondered how it came to pass that Mr Trevelyan’s letters should be sent to such a locality, and Hugh expressed his surprise also. He thought it discreet to withhold his suspicions about Mr Bozzle, and simply expressed his conviction that letters sent in accordance with the directions given by the club-porter would reach their destination. Then the boy was brought down, and they were all very confidential and very unhappy together. Mrs Trevelyan could see no end to the cruelty of her position, and declared that her father’s anger against her husband was so great that she anticipated his coming with almost more of fear than of hope. Mrs Outhouse expressed an opinion that Mr Trevelyan must surely be mad; and Nora suggested that the possibility of such perversity on the part of a man made it almost unwise in any woman to trust herself to the power of a husband, ‘But there are not many like him, thank God,’ said Mrs Outhouse, bridling in her wrath. Thus they were very friendly together, and Hugh was allowed to feel that he stood upon comfortable terms in the parsonage; but he did not as yet see how he was to carry out his project for the present day.

At last Mrs Trevelyan went away with the child. Hugh felt that he ought to go, but stayed courageously. He thought he could perceive that Nora suspected the cause of his assiduity; but it was quite evident that Mrs Outhouse did not do so. Mrs Outhouse, having reconciled herself to the young man, was by no means averse to his presence. She went on talking about the wickedness of Trevelyan, and her brother’s anger, and the fate of the little boy, till at last the little boy’s mother came back into the room. Then Mrs Outhouse went. They must excuse her for a few minutes, she said. If only she would have gone a few minutes sooner, how well her absence might have been excused. Nora understood it all now; and though she became almost breathless, she was not surprised, when Hugh got up from his chair and asked her sister to go away. ‘Mrs Trevelyan,’ he said, ‘I want to speak a few words to your sister, I hope you will give me the opportunity.’

‘Nora!’ exclaimed Mrs Trevelyan.

‘She knows nothing about it,’ said Hugh.

‘Am I to go?’ said Mrs Trevelyan to her sister. But Nora said never a word. She sat perfectly fixed, not turning her eyes from the object on which she was gazing.

‘Pray, pray do,’ said Hugh.

‘I cannot think that it will be for any good,’ said Mrs Trevelyan; ‘but I know that she may be trusted. And I suppose it ought to be so, if you wish it.’

‘I do wish it, of all things,’ said Hugh, still standing up, and almost turning the elder sister out of the room by the force of his look and voice. Then, with another pause of a moment, Mrs Trevelyan rose from her chair and left the room, closing the door after her.

Hugh, when he found that the coast was clear for him, immediately began his task with a conviction that not a moment was to be lost. He had told himself a dozen times that the matter was hopeless, that Nora had shown him by every means in her power that she was indifferent to him, that she with all her friends would know that such a marriage was out of the question; and he had in truth come to believe that the mission which he had in hand was one in which success was not possible. But he thought that it was his duty to go on with it. ‘If a man love a woman, even though it be the king and the beggar-woman reversed though it be a beggar and a queen, he should tell her of it. If it be so, she has a right to know it and to take her choice. And he has a right to tell her, and to say what he can for himself.’ Such was Hugh’s doctrine in the matter; and, acting upon it, he found himself alone with his mistress.

‘Nora,’ he said, speaking perhaps with more energy than the words required, ‘I have come here to tell you that I love you, and to ask you to be my wife.’

Nora, for the last ten minutes, had been thinking that this would come, that it would come at once; and yet she was not at all prepared with an answer. It was now weeks since she had confessed to herself frankly that nothing else but this this one thing which was now happening, this one thing which had now happened, that nothing else could make her happy, or could touch her happiness. She had refused a man whom she otherwise would have taken, because her heart had been given to Hugh Stanbury. She had been bold enough to tell that other suitor that it was so, though she had not mentioned the rival’s name. She had longed for some expression of love from this man when they had been at Nuncombe together, and had been fiercely angry with him because no such expression had come from him. Day after day, since she had been with her aunt, she had told herself that she was a broken-hearted woman, because she had given away all that she had to give and had received nothing in return. Had he said a word that might have given her hope, how happy could she have been in hoping. Now he had come to her with a plain-spoken offer, telling her that he loved her, and asking her to be his wife, and she was altogether unable to answer. How could she consent to be his wife, knowing as she did that there was no certainty of an income on which they could live? How could she tell her father and mother that she had engaged herself to marry a man who might or might not make 400 pounds a year, and who already had a mother and sister depending on him?

In truth, had he come more gently to her, his chance of a happy answer of an answer which might be found to have in it something of happiness would have been greater. He might have said a word which she could not but have answered softly and then from that constrained softness other gentleness would have followed, and so he would have won her in spite of her discretion. She would have surrendered gradually, accepting on the score of her great love all the penalties of a long and precarious engagement. But when she was asked to come and be his wife, now and at once, she felt that in spite of her love it was impossible that she should accede to a request so sudden, so violent, so monstrous. He stood over her as though expecting an instant answer; and then, when she h............