The cab which had passed Adela and her brother at a short distance from Wanley brought faces to the windows or door of almost every house as it rolled through the village street.

The direction in which it was going, the trunk on the roof, the certainty that it had come from Agworth station, suggested to everyone that young Eldon sat within.

The occupant bad, however, put up both windows just before entering the village, and sight of him was not obtained.

Wanley had abundant matter for gossip that evening.

Hubert's return, giving a keener edge to the mystery of his so long delay, would alone have sufficed to wagging tongues; hut, in addition, Mrs.Mewling was on the warpath, and the intelligence she spread was of a kind to run like wildfire.
The approach to the Manor was a carriage-road, obliquely ascending the bill from a point some quarter of a mile beyond the cottages which once housed Belwick's abbots.