No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made.

And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr.Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm.

Mrs.Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband.
The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house.
Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood.

And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt.

"The Colonel," when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs.Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself.