"Do you think the letters have miscarried?" she asked.
"Letters don't miscarry," replied Mr. Loveday.
She looked at him apprehensively; his voice, if not his words, conveyed an accusation against the absent one.
"You believe he has not written," she said.
"I am sure he has not written," said Mr. Loveday.
"Then something must have happened to him," she cried. "He is ill and penniless, and I cannot help him!"
"If I had but a magic ring," thought Mr. Loveday, but he said no word aloud.
He reasoned the matter out with himself. On one side an innocent, unworldly, trustful woman of the people; on the other, the son of a man of fabulous wealth awakened from his dream. For this summer-lover, here was a life of poverty and struggle; there, a life of luxury and ease. To judge by human laws, or, rather, by the laws which governed the class to which Kingsley Manners belonged, which path would the young man choose? "It is more than likely," thought Mr. Loveday, "that the scoundrel has made his peace with his father, and has resolved to cast her off. But he is her husband"-- His contemplations were suddenly arrested. Words uttered by Kingsley's father recurred to him. "I speak of it as a marriage, although I have my reasons for doubting whether it could have been legally entered into." What if there was some foundation for these words? What if they were true? He did not dare to speak to Nansie of this. She would have regarded it as base and disloyal, and the almost certain result would have been to part them forever. So he held his peace out of fear for himself, out of pity for her.
Thus three months passed. Nansie had regained her physical strength, but her heart was charged with woe.
"I cannot bear this suspense any longer," she said to her uncle. "I will go to Kingsley's father, and ask him if he has received any news of my husband."