If ultimately he should find life in Stratton to be unendurable, he would cut that part of his career short, and contrive to get up to London at an earlier time than he had intended.
On the 31st of August Lord Ongar and Sir Hugh Clavering reached Clavering Park, and, as has been already told, a pretty little note was at once sent up to Miss Brabazon in her bedroom.

When she met Lord Ongar in the drawing-room, about an hour afterwards, she had instructed herself that it would be best to say nothing of the note; but she could not refrain from a word.

"I am much obliged, my lord, by your kindness and generosity," she said, as she gave him her hand.

He merely bowed and smiled, and muttered something as to his hoping that he might always find it as easy to gratify her.

He was a little man, on whose behalf it certainly appeared that the Peerage must have told a falsehood; it seemed so at least to those who judged of his years from his appearance.
The Peerage said that he was thirty-six, and that, no doubt, was in truth his age, but any one would have declared him to be ten years older.