She was roused from her meditations by the sound of horses approaching at a smart trot, and turned her head to see that she was being overtaken by Philip, driving his curricle and pair. At sight of him, her resolution wavered, but what he said, as he drew up beside her, put all thought of Torquil out of her head. “I was coming in search of you, Cousin Kate! There’s a splendid old gentleman in Market Harborough, who wants very much to see you. Do you care to drive there with me?”

“An old gentleman to see me?” she said incredulously. “Surely you must be mistaken! I am not acquainted with any old gentlemen!”

“I fear, cousin, that you are getting to be above your company,” he said, quizzing her. “Which is something I did not expect! In fact, I assured Mr Nidd that his apprehensions were quite groundless.”

“Mr Nidd?” she cried joyfully. “Here? Come to visit me? Oh, how glad I am! Is Sarah with him?”

“No, he’s alone. Are you coming?”

“Yes, yes, if you please! I wish you had brought him here!”

“I was very ready to do so, but I couldn’t persuade him to come. He appears to think that you might not wish to see him.”

“Not wish to see him!” exclaimed Kate. “How could he have thought so? When I have written again and again to Sarah, begging her to send me a reply!”

“And didn’t she do so?”

“No, and although my aunt made nothing of it, it has had me in a dreadful worry! My aunt said that in expecting letters from what she calls “persons of that order” I was asking rather too much, and that once Sarah knew I was happy here she would be thankful to be relieved of the expense and the responsibility of looking after me. But I cannot believe that my dear Sarah would—would abandon me in such a heartless way, and I have been wondering whether she is sick, or even dead! For God’s sake, Cousin Philip, Mr Nidd hasn’t come to break that news to me, has he?”

“I shouldn’t think so. According to what he said to me, he has come to discover whether it is you who are either sick or dead. I reassured him on both points, but I believe, Kate, that you should allow me to drive you to Market Harborough, to talk to him yourself.”

“Indeed I will!” she said, with alacrity.

He stretched down his hand to her, and she laid her own in it, and was just about to get up beside him when she hesitated, and asked, looking up at him: “Ought I not to tell my aunt? Ask her leave?”

“No, my child: that is precisely what you ought not to do!” he replied, tightening his hold on her hand, and compelling her to climb into the curricle. “If I know her, Minerva would hit upon some way of preventing you having a tete-a-tete with Mr Nidd.”

“She could not do so!” declared Kate hotly, disposing herself beside him.

“Do you think she could not?” he said, casting a light shawl across her knees, and turning his horses. “You may, of course, be right, but my guess is that either she would escort you to Market Harborough herself, and remain with you throughout, or—which, now I come to think of it, is more likely—send a carriage to bring him to Staplewood, and trust to its splendour, and her own condescension, to abash him. But from what I have seen of Mr Nidd,” he added reflectively, “I shouldn’t think he could be easily abashed.”

Kate could not help laughing a little at this. “Very true, sir!” she acknowledged. “He is the most redoubtable old man! He was kindness itself to me, and I hold him in considerable affection!”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” he returned. “I took a liking to him myself.”

She turned her head to study his profile. “Did you? Yes, you would, of course! But how came you to meet him, sir?”

“Oh, by the merest chance! Whenever I have occasion to transact business in Market Harborough, I stable my cattle at the Angel. Today, when I walked into the yard to recover my curricle, Mr Nidd was there, hob-nobbing with one of the ostlers, with whom he appeared to be on excellent terms. I should suppose him to have been making inquiries about Staplewood and the Broomes, for as I emerged from the inn I heard the ostler say that here was Mr Philip Broome, and why did not Mr Nidd ask questions of me.”

“And did he?”

“No, but as I apprehend that he was bent on discovering information about my uncle and Minerva that was hardly to be expected. He told me that he was your Sarah’s father-in-law, and that she was very anxious to know that you were well, and happy.”

“What did you tell him?” she asked breathlessly.

“I told him that, to the best of my belief, you were in high force. As to your being happy, I could not take it upon myself to say, but I suggested to him that he should judge for himself, and offered to drive him back to Staplewood with me, which he declined, saying that he didn’t wish to intrude upon you uninvited. On reflection, I came to the conclusion that he had the key to the cupboard in his pocket, and I promised to convey to you the intelligence that he was putting up at the Cock, in Market Harborough—and see how you received the news! Not that I had the least doubt, but it was plain that he had.”

She digested this in silence, until some time after he had negotiated the awkward turn out of the main gates, and was driving his forward-stepping pair along the lane which wound its way to Market Harborough. She sat beside him, staring frowningly ahead, only now and then mechanically putting up a hand to straighten her bonnet, which the wind, in spite of the ribbons that were tied under her chin, was making spasmodic attempts to lift from her head. At last she asked, in a voice she tried to render casual: “Did he say—you told me, but I might not have understood you!—that Sarah had received none of my letters to her, sir?”

“None since the first, which you seem to have written on your arrival at Staplewood.”

“I remember.” She relapsed again into silence, but broke it after another pause. “Cousin Philip—do letters go astray, or—or get lost in the post?”

“Rarely, unless they are wrongly directed.”

“I thought not. That forces me to believe that they were never posted. My aunt instructed me to lay them on the table in the hall for Pennymore to collect, and I did so, never dreaming—” She stopped, and after a moment said: “Cousin, do you think it possible that my aunt can have taken my letters, and—and destroyed them?”

Her tone implored him to reassure her, but he replied coolly: I not only think it possible, but very probable.”

“But is it!

He glanced down at her. “I told you this morning, Kate, that the circumstance of your being alone in the world makes you valuable to Minerva. I collect that Mrs Nidd is devoted to you, and I’ll hazard a guess that if she knew that you were unhappy, or being constrained to do something against your will, she would fly to your rescue, even braving Minerva’s quelling top-loftiness.”

“Dear Sarah!” sighed Kate, smiling faintly. “Of course she would!”

“Depend upon it, Minerva is well aware of that.”

“Oh, no, no! Why, she told Sarah that she might be sure of a welcome at Staplewood, if she chose to visit me!”

“I can almost hear her saying it. Knowing that there was very little likelihood of Sarah’s undertaking such a journey uninvited, and none at all, if communication between you could be severed!”

Kate wrung her hands. “You mustn’t say such things! I can’t and I won’t believe them! It would be too shocking—too dreadful!”

“Very well, Kate: I won’t say them.”

“But you have said them, and I shan’t be able to forget them, because—because—”

Her voice failed, and he said: “Because you know, in your heart, that they are true?”

“No, no, I don’t know that, but I can’t help wondering if there might be some truth in them! If my aunt didn’t intercept my letters to Sarah, who did? And—and who but she could have stolen Sarah’s letters to me? Pennymore takes the post-bag to her, and it is she who opens it, and sorts the letters. Only this morning I asked her if there were no letters for me, and she said there were not. Surely, knowing how anxious I was, she would not be so cruel as to lie to me? Every feeling revolts! You, I know, dislike and despise her, but—”

“You’re mistaken!” he interrupted. “I certainly dislike her, but I am far from despising her! She is not only a woman of iron determination, but a very clever woman as well. I am persuaded she would stop at nothing to gain her ends. It will be well for you, my poor child, if you face that disagreeable truth.”

She made a gesture, imploring him to say no more, and for quite some time he drove on in silence. When he did speak again, it was on an indifferent subject, and in a cheerful tone which did much to restore her composure. She managed to answer him in kind, but she was a prey to agitating reflections, and knew that these would recur. A period of quiet thought in the solitude of her bedchamber, would be necessary to enable her to consider dispassionately all that he had said, and all that she knew about Lady Broome. Meanwhile, the most sensible thing to do was to put the matter aside for the time being, and to respond to the unexceptional remarks he was making with at least the assumption of calm interest. It was not so very difficult, for he made her laugh when he described Mr Nidd as being as spruce as an onion, and after that she became much more at her ease. “If that was so,” she said sapiently, “he must be wearing his bettermost clothes! I’m glad you like him—and you do, don’t you?”

“Oh, to the top of the glass! A capital old gentleman—with salt under his tongue!”

“He has plenty of that!” admitted Kate. “Sometimes he offends people by being so outspoken, and using cant terms, which shock Sarah! She was on tenterhooks, when I stayed with her, in case he should say something improper to me. But he never said anything to make me blush, though I must own that I learned a great many words from him which Sarah says are excessively vulgar! I collect he wasn’t uncivil to you?”