But he might in this way have prepared the way for the tidings which would have to be communicated should he finally be successful with Hester Bolton.

Now such news would reach them as an aggravation of the injury.

For that, however, there could be no remedy.

The task at present before him was that of obtaining a footing in the house at Chesterton, and the more he thought of it the more he was at a loss to know how to set about it.
They could not intend to shut such a girl up, through all her young years, as in a convent.

There must be present to the minds of both of them an idea that marriage would be good for her, or, at any rate, that she should herself have some choice in the matter.