with them.
"But I can cast her off from me, if she be disobedient," said Sir
Marmaduke. Lady Rowley, however, had no desire that her daughter
should be cast off, and was aware that Sir Marmaduke, when it came
to the point of casting off, would be as little inclined to be stern
as she was herself. Sir Marmaduke, still hoping that firmness would
carry the day, and believing that it behoved him to maintain his
parental authority, ended the discussion by keeping possession of the
letter, and saying that he would take time to consider the matter.
"What security have we that he will ever marry her, if she does
stay?" he asked the next morning. Lady Rowley had no doubt on this
score, and protested that her opposition to Hugh Stanbury arose
simply from his want of income. "I should never be justified," said
Sir Marmaduke, "if I were to go and leave my girl as it were in the
hands of a penny-a-liner." The letter, in the end, was not sent; and
Nora and her father hardly spoke to each other as they made their
journey back to Florence together.

Emily Trevelyan, before the arrival of that letter from her husband,
had determined that she would not leave Italy. It had been her
purpose to remain somewhere in the neighbourhood of her husband and
child; and to overcome her difficulties,--or be overcome by them, as
circumstances might direct. Now her plans were again changed,--or,
rather, she was now without a plan. She could form no plan till
she should again see Mr. Glascock. Should her child be restored to
her, would it not be her duty to remain near her husband? All this
made Nora's line of conduct the more difficult for her. It was
acknowledged that she could not remain in Italy. Mrs. Trevelyan's
position would be most embarrassing; but as all her efforts were to
be used towards a reconciliation with her husband, and as his state
utterly precluded the idea of a mixed household,--of any such a
family arrangement as that which had existed in Curzon Street,--Nora
could not remain with her. Mrs. Trevelyan herself had declared that
she would not wish it. And, in that case, where was Nora to bestow
herself when Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley had sailed? Caroline
offered to curtail those honeymoon weeks in Switzerland, but it was
impossible to listen to an offer so magnanimous and so unreasonable.
Nora had a dim romantic idea of sharing Priscilla's bed-room in that
small cottage near Nuncombe Putney, of which she had heard, and of
there l