"Aye, disgraceful," resumed her father with increasing emphasis. "I fear I must say it, and there's not a person who if he knew all that I know, would not join me in saying it. But Godfrey Stubbs was your husband, and——"
"And they shan't dare to speak a word against him—oh, they shan't—they shall not,"—with a face of fire she turned towards him, "and, father, you can't and you mustn't, either; Godfrey——" but she could speak no more for sobbing.
"You shall protect his memory, Leonore."
And when the carriage drew up beneath the Abbey portico, General Boldero felt that he had accomplished the object for which he had met his daughter, and met her alone.
CHAPTER III.
SPECULATIONS.
"I saw old Brown-boots Boldero at the station to-day," quoth Dr. Humphrey Craig, the doctor of the neighbourhood, as he shook himself out of his greatcoat and wiped the October mist from his beard, within the hall of his comfortable house. "Spick and span as usual, and boots as glossy as if there were no such things as muddy lanes in the world. To be sure he had his carriage to-day, though."
"His carriage?" The doctor's cheerful little wife was at once all interest; something in her husband's tone awakened interest.
"He was bringing home that poor girl of his."