"What are you going to do?" she asked, with some anxiety in her voice.

"Do? why of course I must go home at once."

"And what am I to do?"

"Well, I don't know; I suppose that you must stop here."

"That will be pleasant for me, will it not?"

"No, dear, it will be pleasant neither for you nor me; but what can I
do? You know the man my father is to deal with; if I stop here in
defiance to his wishes, especially as he has been anxious about me,
there is no knowing what might not happen. Remember, Hilda, that we
have to deal with George, whose whole life is devoted to secret
endeavours to supplant me. If I were to give him such an opportunity
as I should by stopping away now, I should deserve all I got, or
rather all I did not get."

Hilda sighed and acquiesced; had she been a softer-minded woman she
would have wept and relieved her feelings, but she was not soft-
minded. And so, before the post went out, he wrote an affectionate
letter to his father, expressing his sorrow at the latter's anxiety at
at his own negligence in not having written to him, the fact of the
matter being, he said, that he had been taken up with visiting some of
his Oxford friends, and had not till that afternoon been near his club
to look for letters. He would, however, he added, return on the
morrow, and make his apologies in person.

This letter he handed to his wife to read.