hink she will visit Monkhams when the
Glascock people return to England."

"What an episode in life,--to go and see the place, when it might all
now have been hers!"

"I suppose I ought to feel dreadfully ashamed of myself for having
marred such promotion," said Hugh.

"Nora is such a singular girl;--so firm, so headstrong, so good, and
so self-reliant that she will do as well with a poor man as she would
have done with a rich. Shall I confess to you that I did wish that
she should accept Mr. Glascock, and that I pressed it on her very
strongly? You will not be angry with me?"

"I am only the more proud of her;--and of myself."

"When she was told of all that he had to give in the way of wealth
and rank, she took the bit between her teeth and would not be turned
an inch. Of course she was in love."

"I hope she may never regret it;--that is all."

"She must change her nature first. Everything she sees at Monkhams
will make her stronger in her choice. With all her girlish ways, she
is like a rock;--nothing can move her."

Early on the next morning Hugh started alone for Casalunga, having
first, however, seen Mrs. Trevelyan. He took out with him certain
little things for the sick man's table;--as to which, however, he
was cautioned to say not a word to the sick man himself. And it was
arranged that he should endeavour to fix a day for Trevelyan's return
to England. That was to be the one object in view. "If we could get
him to England," she said, "he and I would, at any rate, be together,
and gradually he would be taught to submit himself to advice." Before
ten in the morning, Stanbury was walking up the hill to the house,
and wondering at the dreary, hot, hopeless desolation of the spot.
It seemed to him that no one could live alone in such a place, in
such weather, without being driven to madness. The soil was parched
and dusty, as though no drop of rain had fallen there for months.
The lizards, glancing in and out of the broken walls, added to the
appearance of heat. The vegetation itself was of a faded yellowish
green, as though the glare of the sun had taken the fresh colour out
of it. There was a noise of grasshoppers and a hum of flies in the
air, hardly audible, but all giving evidence of the heat. Not a human
voice was to be heard, nor the sound of a human foot, and there was
no shelter; but the sun blazed down full upon everything. He took
off his hat, and rubbed his head with his handkerchief as he st