l rather--"

"Just so," said Hester.

"The last few days. But, of course, I took no notice of it. A married
woman often has to deal with such things without making a fuss about
them. Well, I overslept myself, and it was nearly half-past four before
I awoke. And when I went into my sitting-room a servant brought me a
note. It was from him, saying he had been obliged to leave Wilderleigh
suddenly on urgent business, and asking that his baggage might be sent
after him."

Hester raised her eyes slightly, as if words failed her. Sybell's
conversation always interested her.

"Perhaps the reason she is never told anything," she said to herself,
"is because the ground the confidence would cover is invariably built
over already by a fiction of her own which it would not please her to
see destroyed."

"Who would have thought," continued Sybell, "that he would have behaved
in that way because I was one little half-hour late. And of course the
pretext of urgent business is too transparent, because there is no
Sunday post, and the telegraph-boy had not been up. I asked that. And he
was so anxious to finish the sketch. He almost asked to stay over Sunday
on purpose."

Rachel and Hester looked on the ground.

"Rachel said he was all right in the garden just before, didn't you,
Rachel?"

"I said I thought he was a little nervous."

And what did he talk to you about?"

"He spoke about the low tone of the morals of the day, and about
marriage."

"Ah! I don't wonder he talked to you, Rachel, you are so sympathetic. I
expect lots of people confide in you about their troubles and love
affairs. Morals of the day! Marriage! Poor, poor Mr. Tristram! I shall
tell Doll quietly this evening. On the whole, it is just as well he is
gone."

"Just as well," said Rachel and Hester, with surprising unanimity.

CHAPTER XXIX

So fast does a little leaven spread within us--so incalculable is
the effect of one personality on another.--GEORGE ELIOT.

Hugh was not ill after what Mr. Gresley called "his immersion," but for
some days he remained feeble and exhausted. Sybell quite forgot she had
not liked him, insisted on his staying on indefinitely at Wilderleigh,
and, undaunted by her distressing experience with Mr. Tristram, read
poetry to Hugh in the afternoons and surrounded him with genuine
warm-hearted care. Doll was steadily, quietly kind.

It was during these days that Hugh and Rachel saw much of each other,
dur