e.

'Do you believe in such odd coincidences?' said Cytherea.

'How do you mean, believe in them? They occur sometimes.'

'Yes, one will occur often enough--that is, two disconnected events will
fall strangely together by chance, and people scarcely notice the fact
beyond saying, "Oddly enough it happened that so and so were the same,"
and so on. But when three such events coincide without any apparent
reason for the coincidence, it seems as if there must be invisible means
at work. You see, three things falling together in that manner are ten
times as singular as two cases of coincidence which are distinct.'

'Well, of course: what a mathematical head you have, Cytherea! But I
don't see so much to marvel at in our case. That the man who kept the
public-house in which Miss Aldclyffe fainted, and who found out her name
and position, lives in this neighbourhood, is accounted for by the fact
that she got him the berth to stop his tongue. That you came here was
simply owing to Springrove.'

'Ah, but look at this. Miss Aldclyffe is the woman our father first
loved, and I have come to Miss Aldclyffe's; you can't get over that.'

From these premises, she proceeded to argue like an elderly divine on
the designs of Providence which were apparent in such conjunctures, and
went into a variety of details connected with Miss Aldclyffe's history.

'Had I better tell Miss Aldclyffe that I know all this?' she inquired at
last.

'What's the use?' he said. 'Your possessing the knowledge does no harm;
you are at any rate comfortable here, and a confession to Miss Aldclyffe
might only irritate her. No, hold your tongue, Cytherea.'

'I fancy I should have been tempted to tell her too,' Cytherea went on,
'had I not found out that there exists a very odd, almost imperceptible,
and yet real connection of some kind between her and Mr. Manston, which
is more than that of a mutual interest in the estate.'

'She is in love with him!' exclaimed Owen; 'fancy that!'

'Ah--that's what everybody says who has been keen enough to notice
anything. I said so at first. And yet now I cannot persuade myself that
she is in love with him at all.'

'Why can't you?'

'She doesn't act as if she were. She isn't--you will know I don't say it
from any vanity, Owen--she isn't the least jealous of me.'

'Perhaps she is in some way in his power.'

'No--she is not. He was openly advertised for, and chosen from forty or
fifty who answered the advertisemen