ent,--and who could send a child into such keeping,--he told me
that I was the basest liar that ever broke a promise, and the vilest
traitor that had ever returned evil for good. I was never to come to
him again,--never; and the gate of the house would be closed against
me if I appeared there."

On the next day she had gone again, however, and had seen him, and
had visited him on every day since. Nothing further had been said
about the child, and he had now become almost too weak for violent
anger. "I told him you were coming, and though he would not say so,
I think he is glad of it. He expects you to-morrow."

"I will go this evening, if he will let me."

"Not to-night. I think he goes to bed almost as the sun sets. I am
never there myself after four or five in the afternoon. I told him
that you should be there to-morrow,--alone. I have hired a little
carriage, and you can take it. He said specially that I was not
to come with you. Papa goes certainly on next Saturday?" It was a
Saturday now,--this day on which Stanbury had arrived at Siena.

"He leaves town on Friday."

"You must make him believe that. Do not tell him suddenly, but bring
it in by degrees. He thinks that I am deceiving him. He would go back
if he knew that papa were gone."

They spent a long evening together, and Stanbury learned all that
Mrs. Trevelyan could tell him of her husband's state. There was no
doubt, she said, that his reason was affected; but she thought the
state of his mind was diseased in a ratio the reverse of that of his
body, and that when he was weakest in health, then were his ideas the
most clear and rational. He never now mentioned Colonel Osborne's
name, but would refer to the affairs of the last two years as though
they had been governed by an inexorable Fate which had utterly
destroyed his happiness without any fault on his part. "You may be
sure," she said, "that I never accuse him. Even when he says terrible
things of me,--which he does,--I never excuse myself. I do not think
I should answer a word, if he called me the vilest thing on earth."
Before they parted for the night many questions were of course asked
about Nora, and Hugh described the condition in which he and she
stood to each other. "Papa has consented, then?"

"Yes,--at four o'clock in the morning,--just as I was leaving them."

"And when is it to be?"

"Nothing has been settled, and I do not as yet know where she will go
to when they leave London. I t