Under the influence of this feeling she made remarks from time to time of an apparently harmless nature, but which in the squire promoted that strange inclination to talk about himself, which he had lately observed and which caused him so much alarm.

He said to himself that he had nothing to be concealed, and that if any one had asked him direct questions concerning his past he would have answered them boldly enough.

But he knew himself to be so singularly averse to dwelling on his own affairs that he wondered why he should now be impelled to break through so good a rule.
Indeed he had not the insight to perceive that Mrs.Goddard lost no opportunity of leading him to the subject of his various adventures, and, if he had suspected it, he would have been very much surprised.
Mr.and Mrs.Ambrose were far from guessing what an intimacy had sprung up between the two.

Both the cottage and the Hall lay at a considerable distance from the vicarage, and though Mrs.Ambrose occasionally went to see Mrs.Goddard at irregular hours in the morning and afternoon, it was remarkable that the squire never called when she was there.

Once Mrs.
Ambrose arrived during one of his visits, but thought it natural enough that Mr.Juxon should drop in to see his tenant.