It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same.

They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform.

Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do.

He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne.

Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man.
The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him.
"What! Mr.Stanbury,--how do you do?
Fine day, isn't it?
Are you going up or down ?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh.
"Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done.
If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing.