Why had he come there?
Had he come there for her?
Oh! if he had come there for her, and if she might dare to forget all the future, how sweet,--sweetest of all things in heaven or earth,--might be an August evening with him among the lanes! But she, too, had endeavoured to be very prudent.

She had told herself that she was quite unfit to be the wife of a poor man,--that she would be only a burden round his neck, and not an aid to him.

And in so telling herself, she had told herself also that she had been a fool not to accept Mr.Glascock.She should have dragged out from her heart the image of this man who had never even whispered a word of love in her ears, and should have constrained herself to receive with affection a man in loving whom there ought to be no difficulty.

But when she had been repeating those lessons to herself, Hugh Stanbury had not been in the house.

Now he was there;--and what must be her answer if he should whisper that word of love?
She had an idea that it would be treason in her to disown the love she felt, if questioned concerning her heart by the man to whom it had been given.
They all went to church on the Sunday morning, and up to that time Nora had not been a moment alone with the man.