But Priscilla walked with Nora, and Hugh Stanbury walked with his friend's wife.

Nora was talkative, but demure in her manner, and speaking now and again as though she were giving words and not thoughts.

She felt that there was something to hide, and was suffering from disappointment that their party should not have been otherwise divided.

Had Hugh spoken to her and asked her to be his wife, she could not have accepted him, because she knew that they were both poor, and that she was not fit to keep a poor man's house.

She had declared to herself most plainly that that must be her course;--but yet she was disappointed, and talked on with the knowledge that she had something to conceal.
[Illustration: Niddon Park.] When they were seated beneath an old riven, withered oak, looking down upon the river, they were still divided in the same way.