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How did I know how far you had gone with them and their son? You might have made a point of taking tea with them every day, for all that I knew. Elfride swallowed her feelings as she best could, and languidly though flatly asked a question. 'Did you kiss Mrs. Troyton on the lawn about three weeks ago? That evening I came into the study and found you had just had candles in? Mr.

The ride was too much for you. Well, this is what I went away for. I went to be married! 'Married! she faltered, and could hardly check an involuntary 'So did I. A moment after and her resolve to confess perished like a bubble. 'Yes; to whom do you think? Mrs. Troyton, the new owner of the estate over the hedge, and of the old manor-house.

No: another voice shouted occasional replies; and this interlocutor seemed to be on the other side of the hedge. The voice, though soft in quality, was not Stephen's. The second speaker must have been in the long-neglected garden of an old manor-house hard by, which, together with a small estate attached, had lately been purchased by a person named Troyton, whom Elfride had never seen.

Beyond this rather quaint array of stone and metal Mrs. Swancourt wore no ornament whatever. Elfride had been favourably impressed with Mrs. Troyton at their meeting about two months earlier; but to be pleased with a woman as a momentary acquaintance was different from being taken with her as a stepmother. However, the suspension of feeling was but for a moment. Elfride decided to like her still.

'Who is that lady in the carriage? he inquired indifferently of Lickpan the carrier. 'That, sir, is Mrs. Troyton, a widder wi' a mint o' money. She's the owner of all that part of Endelstow that is not Lord Luxellian's. Only been here a short time; she came into it by law.

'There were two or three reasons for secrecy. One was the recent death of her relative the testator, though that did not apply to you. But remember, Elfride, he continued in a stiffer tone, 'you had mixed yourself up so foolishly with those low people, the Smiths and it was just, too, when Mrs. Troyton and myself were beginning to understand each other that I resolved to say nothing even to you.