"Miss Bentley may have got him there to marry him, but Mrs. Bentley
seems to have meant nothing more than an engagement at the worst."

"What _do_ you mean? They're not engaged, are they?"

"They're not married, at any rate, and I suppose they're engaged. I did
not have it from Miss Bentley, but I suppose Glendenning may be trusted
in such a case."

"Now," said my wife, with a severity that might well have appalled me,
"if you will please to explain, Basil, it will be better for you."

"Why, it is simply this. Glendenning seems to have made himself so
useful to the mother and pleasing to the daughter after we left them in
Montreal that he was tolerated on a pretence that there was reason for
his writing back to Mrs. Bentley after he got home, and, as Mrs. Bentley
never writes letters, Miss Bentley had the hard task of answering him.
This led to a correspondence."

"And to her moving heaven and earth to get him to Gormanville. I see! Of
course she did it so that no one knew what she was about!"

"Apparently. Glendenning himself was not in the secret. The Bentleys
were in Europe last summer, and he did not know that they had a place at
Gormanville till he came to live there. Another proof that Miss Bentley
got him there is the fact that she and her mother are Unitarians, and
that they would naturally be able to select the rector of the Episcopal
church."