"It was all a mistake—Mr. Musgrave confesses to having been misinformed. She continues to live with her brother and sister at Croydon—vulgar impossible people!—though Osborne insists that they have a child who is a perfect little lady!—I cannot understand these Watsons!"
On the plea of his disordered dress, Mr. Howard soon after retired, but, as he crossed the room it was as though something of its beauty had faded. It no longer held the same spell for him. Something of disquiet had wakened in him. An instinct, not unakin to a sense of shrinking, had possessed him—almost as though there were a pitfall at his feet.
As he entered his old apartment, he was again conscious of uneasiness. It had been freshly decorated, and re-furnished, and there was an air of luxury which somehow repelled him, giving him a feeling of oppression. He went over to the casement, and throwing it wide open, regardless of frost and snow, looked out into the quiet night, with its myriad of stars.
On the following day he set out to call on some old parishioners, and had not gone very far on his way when he encountered Tom Musgrave riding along.
"If ever I met such a fellow as you are, Howard! We all thought you'd been eaten by cannibals!"
"Sorry to disappoint you!—but there are no cannibals in Spain!"
"Well, crocodiles!—it's all one!—and here's Osborne gone off to Paris, clean out of his wits over Miss Watson!"
"How came you to make such a mistake with regard to Miss Watson?"
"Faith! I don't know that there was any mistake! Her people are wild with her for not having Osborne—but there seems to be some other fellow in the background—someone she had met at her aunt's—and she seems fully determined to have her own way. She has, absolutely, left them at Croydon, and gone to stay with her younger brother, where there will be nobody to look after her from morning to night!"
This story unfortunately received confirmation during the morning; and on the following day, when he rode over to the Rectory to see Purvis, it received a still more disquieting aspect. Emma had been seen in the company of a Captain Conway at A——, a man who was said to be highly connected, though of this there was no certain proof—but who, on the other hand, was well known to be a profligate. Heavy at heart he returned to the Castle.