Hardly was the door shut behind him than Selina said in an agitated voice: “He was holding your hand! Oh, Abby, why did he come? Do not keep me in suspense! I can’t bear it!”

“I imagine you must know why he came,” said Abby, in a level voice.

“I guessed it!” moaned Selina, pressing a hand to her heart “What was your answer ? Tell me, Abby!”

“Don’t distress yourself!” Abby said wearily. “I have refused his offer.”

“Oh!” cried Selina, suddenly radiant. “Oh, how glad I am! Dear, dear Abby, now we can be happy again!”

Feeling quite unable to respond to this, Abby left the room without a word, and sought the seclusion of her bedchamber. She remained there for some considerable time, and was thus spared the account of Mr Calverleigh’s arrival in Bath, which Miss Butterbank, with a scarf still wrapped round her face, brought to Sydney Place. Selina said nothing about this when she later told Abby the rest of the news Miss Butterbank had poured into her ears. This was of a startling and an intriguing nature: Mrs Clapham, accompanied by her retinue, had left Bath on the previous evening; and Mr Stacy Calverleigh had undoubtedly followed her, for he had boarded one of the post coaches that very morning, and without, said Miss Butterbank, a word of warning to anyone.

Abby was relieved to know that he had removed himself from Bath, but although she made an effort to enter into Selina’s speculations on the various possible causes of these separate departures, she felt no flicker of interest. The next piece of Bath news came from Mrs Leavening, and interested her too much.

Mrs Leavening, now established in Orange Grove, had called at York House for any letters which might have been sent there, and she had learnt of Mr Calverleigh’s return. She had also learnt that he had remained for only one night before disappearing again, like a perfect will-o’-the-wisp.

“There’s no knowing what freakish thing he’ll do next!” chuckled Mrs Leavening. “What in the world made him come all the way from London only for one night? It seems he’s set up his own chaise, too, but where it has taken him off to goodness knows! He is quite in my black books, as I shall tell him, for he promised to give us a look-in when he came back to Bath, and never a glimpse of him did we get. However, they say he means to return, so I daresay I shall have an opportunity to give him a scold.”

Abby, knowing that it would be better for her not to see Mr Calverleigh again, tried to school herself into hoping that he would not call in Sydney Place, but failed. Their parting had been too abrupt; there had been so much left unsaid; and to have been obliged to say goodbye to him as to the merest acquaintance was too painful to be borne.

Nothing more was heard of him for three interminable days.

Selina, miraculously restored to health and spirits, wrote a surreptitious letter to James, informing him, in the strictest confidence, that all was at an end between Abby and Mr Miles Calverleigh, and that she had known from the start that the affair had been grossly exaggerated by Mrs Ruscombe. She added that she hoped dear Cornelia would not, in future, allow herself to pay so much heed to That Woman’s malicious gossip.

Her expression of dismay, when, upon the fourth day, Mitton announced the arrival of Mr Calverleigh was almost ludicrous. It caught Fanny’s attention, and made her look quickly at Abby, a sudden suspicion entering her mind.

Mr Calverleigh, with his customary disregard for the conventions governing polite circles, had chosen a most unseasonable hour for his visit. The ladies had only ten minutes earlier left the breakfast-parlour. He seemed to be quite unaware that he was committing a social solecism, but entered the room as though sure that he must be welcome, and cheerfully greeted its occupants. He said that he was glad to have found them at home, congratulated Fanny on her recovery from her illness, and, turning to Abby, said, smiling at her: “I’ve come to take you for a drive.”

Selina seethed with indignation. What Abby found to like in this abrupt, mannerless creature was a matter passing her comprehension! She hurried into speech. “So obliging of you, sir, but it would be most unwise for my sister to venture out in an open carriage! The weather is so unsettled—it will come on to pour in another hour, I daresay, for at this season there is no depending on it! Besides, I wish her to go with me to the Pump Room!”

Forgetting her own troubles in the liveliest curiosity, Fanny said brightly: “I’ll go with you, Aunt Selina. A drive is just what will do Abby good, after being cooped up in the house for so long!”

Mr Calverleigh, smiling at her, said: “Good girl!” which made her giggle, and told Abby to go and put on her bonnet. He added a recommendation to bring a tippet, or a shawl, with her.

“So that you may be easy!” he said, addressing himself to Selina “I don’t think she will take cold, if she wraps herself up well, and if it should come on to rain we can always find shelter, you know.”

He then engaged Fanny in idle conversation, while Selina sought in vain for further reasons why Abby should not drive out with him.

When Abby came back into the room, suitably attired for the expedition, Selina made a last attempt to convince her that she was running the gravest risk of contracting a heavy cold, if not an inflammation of the lungs, but Fanny, giving Abby an impulsive kiss, interrupted her very rudely, saying: “Fiddle! It is the finest day we have had for weeks! I’ll come and tuck you up in quantities of shawls, Abby!”

“Thank you!” Abby said, laughing. “I fancy one will be enough! Goodbye, Selina: there is no need for you to be in a fidget, I promise you.”

Mr Calverleigh watched her go out of the room, and turned to take leave of Selina. “Don’t worry!” he said. “I shall take great care of her.”

Five minutes later, leaving Fanny waving farewell on the doorstep, he drove off at a smart trot, and said darkly: “Indian manners, my dear!”

Abby chuckled. “Rag-manners! Poor Selina!”

“I was afraid you might yield to her entreaties.”

“No. I hoped I might see you again. It was so uncomfortable—saying goodbye as we did. I never told you about Fanny, either. We—we won’t discuss that other matter, for there is nothing to be said, and I know you won’t distress me by trying to persuade me, will you?”

“No, no, I won’t try to persuade you!” he promised.

This ready acquiescence was unexpected, and not altogether welcome; but after a few moments Abby said, with determined cheerfulness: “Stacy did mean to elope with Fanny, you know. She told me the whole. If she hadn’t contracted influenza, heaven knows what might have happened! But she did, and while she was laid up we had the most amazing stroke of good fortune befall us!”

He laughed. “No, did you?”

“Yes, for who should arrive in Bath but a rich widow! Fabulously rich, by all accounts! I never saw her myself, but I believe she is quite young, and very pretty. And she put up at the White Hart!”

“No!”

“Yes! With a companion, and a maid, and a footman—oh, and a courier as well! You wouldn’t have believed it!”

“Oh, wouldn’t I!” said Mr Calverleigh.

“And she hadn’t been there for a day before Stacy was busy fixing his interest with her! Would you have thought it possible?”

“Not only possible, but certain.”

“Well, I must say I didn’t, when I first heard of it. I never supposed him to be as—as shameless as that!”

“My odious nephew, I regret to say, is entirely shameless.”

“He must be. I can’t help pitying the widow, for I think she must have found him out. She left Bath quite suddenly, and although I was excessively thankful that Stacy did attach himself to her, it must have been very painful for her.”

“Set your mind at rest, my love! It wasn’t at all painful for her.”

“You can’t know that!” objected Abby.

“Oh, yes, I can!” he retorted. “I sent her here!”

“You?” she gasped.

“Yes, of course. Didn’t you guess it? I rather thought you would.”

“Good God, no! But who was she? How did you contrive to send her to Bath? And what a shocking thing to do! Exposing her to—Miles, it was monstrous! How can you laugh?”

“You shouldn’t make me laugh. My precious pea-goose, I hired her to bamboozle Stacy! As far as I can discover, her performance was most talented—though she seems to have broken down a trifle before she rang down the final curtain. As to who she is, I really don’t know, except that she was at onetime an actress.”

Miss Abigail Wendover, having digested this information said, in accents of stern disapproval: “I collect, sir, that she is not a—a respectable female?”

“Let us rather say, ma’am, that you are unlikely to meet her in the first circles.”

“You seem to have done so!”

“No, no, not in the first circles!”

Her dimple quivered, but she suppressed it. “And are you very well acquainted with her?” she enquired politely.

“Oh, no! I only met her once—to rehearse her in her role, you know. Dolly found her for me. Dolly was Mrs Clapham’s companion. I was extremely well acquainted with her—some twenty years ago,” he explained outrageously. “She used to be known as the Dasher, and a very dashing little barque of frailty she was! She is now engaged in—er—a different branch of the profession, and has become alarmingly tonnish. However, she consented, at an extortionate price, to take part in my masquerade. In fact, she insisted on doing so. She never could resist a spree.”