So it was. Lady Carbury had returned home from the soirée of learned people, and had brought Roger Carbury with her. They both came up to the drawing-room and found Paul and Henrietta together. It need hardly be said that they were both surprised. Roger supposed that Montague was still at Liverpool, and, knowing that he was not a frequent visitor in Welbeck Street, could hardly avoid a feeling that a meeting between the two had now been planned in the mother’s absence. The reader knows that it was not so. Roger certainly was a man not liable to suspicion, but the circumstances in this case were suspicious. There would have been nothing to suspect — no reason why Paul should not have been there — but from the promise which had been given. There was, indeed, no breach of that promise proved by Paul’s presence in Welbeck Street; but Roger felt rather than thought that the two could hardly have spent the evening together without such breach. Whether Paul had broken the promise by what he had already said the reader must be left to decide.

Lady Carbury was the first to speak. ‘This is quite an unexpected pleasure, Mr Montague.’ Whether Roger suspected anything or not, she did. The moment she saw Paul the idea occurred to her that the meeting between Hetta and him had been preconcerted.

‘Yes,’ he said making a lame excuse, where no excuse should have been made — ‘I had nothing to do, and was lonely, and thought that I would come up and see you.’ Lady Carbury disbelieved him altogether, but Roger felt assured that his coming in Lady Carbury’s absence had been an accident. The man had said so, and that was enough.

‘I thought you were at Liverpool,’ said Roger.

‘I came back to-day — to be present at that Board in the city. I have had a good deal to trouble me. I will tell you all about it just now. What has brought you to London?’

‘A little business,’ said Roger.

Then there was an awkward silence. Lady Carbury was angry, and hardly knew whether she ought not to show her anger. For Henrietta it was very awkward. She, too, could not but feel that she had been caught, though no innocence could be whiter than hers. She knew well her mother’s mind, and the way in which her mother’s thoughts would run. Silence was frightful to her, and she found herself forced to speak. ‘Have you had a pleasant evening, mamma?’

‘Have you had a pleasant evening, my dear?’ said Lady Carbury, forgetting herself in her desire to punish her daughter.

‘Indeed, no,’ said Hetta, attempting to laugh, ‘I have been trying to work hard at Dante, but one never does any good when one has to try to work. I was just going to bed when Mr Montague came in. What did you think of the wise men and the wise women, Roger?’

‘I was out of my element, of course; but I think your mother liked it.’

‘I was very glad indeed to meet Dr Palmoil. It seems that if we can only open the interior of Africa a little further, we can get everything that is wanted to complete the chemical combination necessary for feeding the human race. Isn’t that a grand idea, Roger?’

‘A little more elbow grease is the combination that I look to.’

‘Surely, Roger, if the Bible is to go for anything, we are to believe that labour is a curse and not a blessing. Adam was not born to labour.’

‘But he fell; and I doubt whether Dr Palmoil will be able to put his descendants back into Eden.’

‘Roger, for a religious man, you do say the strangest things! I have quite made up my mind to this; — if ever I can see things so settled here as to enable me to move, I will visit the interior of Africa. It is the garden of the world.’

This scrap of enthusiasm so carried them through their immediate difficulties that the two men were able to take their leave and to get out of the room with fair comfort. As soon as the door was closed behind them Lady Carbury attacked her daughter. ‘What brought him here?’

‘He brought himself, mamma.’

‘Don’t answer me in that way, Hetta. Of course he brought himself. That is insolent.’

‘Insolent, mamma! How can you say such hard words? I meant that he came of his own accord.’

‘How long was he here?’

‘Two minutes before you came in. Why do you cross-question me like this? I could not help his coming. I did not desire that he might be shown up.’

‘You did not know that he was to come?’

‘Mamma, if I am to be suspected, all is over between us.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘If you can think that I would deceive you, you will think so always. If you will not trust me, how am I to live with you as though you did? I knew nothing of his coming.’

‘Tell me this, Hetta; are you engaged to marry him?’

‘No; — I am not.’

‘Has he asked you to marry him?’

Hetta paused a moment, considering, before she answered this question. ‘I do not think he ever has.’

‘You do not think?’

‘I was going on to explain. He never has asked me. But he has said that which makes me know that he wishes me to be his wife.’

‘What has he said? When did he say it?’

Again she paused. But again she answered with straightforward simplicity. ‘Just before you came in, he said —; I don’t know what he said; but it meant that.’

‘You told me he had been here but a minute.’

‘It was but very little more. If you take me at my word in that way, of course you can make me out to be wrong, mamma. It was almost no time, and yet he said it.’

‘He had come prepared to say it.’

‘How could he — expecting to find you?’

‘Psha! He expected nothing of the kind.’

‘I think you do him wrong, mamma. I am sure you are doing me wrong. I think his coming was an accident, and that what he said was — an accident.’

‘An accident!’

‘It was not intended — not then, mamma. I have known it ever so long; — and so have you. It was natural that he should say so when we were alone together.’

‘And you; — what did you say?’

‘Nothing. You came.’

‘I am sorry that my coming should have been so inopportune. But I must ask one other question, Hetta. What do you intend to say?’ Hetta was again silent, and now for a longer space. She put her hand up to her brow and pushed back her hair as she thought whether her mother had a right to continue this cross-examination. She had told her mother everything as it had happened. She had kept back no deed done, no word spoken, either now or at any time. But she was not sure that her mother had a right to know her thoughts, feeling as she did that she had so little sympathy from her mother. ‘How do you intend to answer him?’ demanded Lady Carbury.

‘I do not know that he will ask again.’

‘That is prevaricating.’

‘No, mamma; — I do not prevaricate. It is unfair to say that to me. I do love him. There. I think it ought to have been enough for you to know that I should never give him encouragement without telling you about it. I do love him, and I shall never love any one else.’

‘He is a ruined man. Your cousin says that all this Company in which he is involved will go to pieces.’

Hetta was too clever to allow this argument to pass. She did not doubt that Roger had so spoken of the Railway to her mother, but she did doubt that her mother had believed the story. ‘If so,’ said she, ‘Mr Melmotte will be a ruined man too, and yet you want Felix to marry Marie Melmotte.’

‘It makes me ill to hear you talk — as if you understood these things. And you think you will marry this man because he is to make a fortune out of the Railway!’ Lady Carbury was able to speak with an extremity of scorn in reference to the assumed pursuit by one of her children of an advantageous position which she was doing all in her power to recommend to the other child.

‘I have not thought of his fortune. I have not thought of marrying him, mamma. I think you are very cruel to me. You say things so hard, that I cannot bear them.’

‘Why will you not marry your cousin?’

‘I am not good enough for him.’

‘Nonsense!’

‘Very well; you say so. But that is what I think. He is so much above me, that, though I do love him, I cannot think of him in that way. And I have told you that I do love some one else. I have no secret from you now. Good night, mamma,’ she said, coming up to her mother and kissing her. ‘Do be kind to me; and pray — pray — do believe me.’ Lady Carbury then allowed herself to be kissed, and allowed her daughter to leave the room.

There was a great deal said that night between Roger Carbury and Paul Montague before they parted. As they walked together to Roger’s hotel he said not a word as to Paul’s presence in Welbeck Street. Paul had declared his visit in Lady Carbury’s absence to have been accidental — and therefore there was nothing more to be said. Montague then asked as to the cause of Carbury’s journey to London. ‘I do not wish it to be talked of,’ said Roger after a pause — ‘and of course I could not speak of it before Hetta. A girl has gone away from our neighbourhood. You remember old Ruggles?’

‘You do not mean that Ruby has levanted? She was to have married John Crumb.’

‘Just so — but she has gone off, leaving John Crumb in an unhappy frame of mind. John Crumb is an honest man and almost too good for her.’

‘Ruby is very pretty. Has she gone with any one?’

‘No; — she went alone. But the horror of it is this. They think down there that Felix has — well, made love to her, and that she has been taken to London by him.’

‘That would be very bad.’

‘He certainly has known her. Though he lied, as he always lies, when I first spoke to him, I brought him to admit that he and she had been friends down in Suffolk. Of course we know what such friendship means. But I do not think that she came to London at his instance. Of course he would lie about that. He would lie about anything. If his horse cost him a hundred pounds, he would tell one man that he gave fifty, and another two hundred. But he has not lived long enough yet to be able to lie and tell the truth with the same eye. When he is as old as I am he’ll be perfect.’

‘He knows nothing about her coming to town?’

‘He did not when I first asked him. I am not sure, but I fancy that I was too quick after her. She started last Saturday morning. I followed on the Sunday, and made him out at his club. I think that he knew nothing then of her being in town. He is very clever if he did. Since that he has avoided me. I caught him once but only for half a minute, and then he swore that he had not seen her.’

‘You still believed him?’

‘No; — he did it very well, but I knew that he was prepared for me. I cannot say how it may have been. To make matters worse old Ruggles has now quarrelled with Crumb, and is no longer anxious to get back his granddaughter. He was frightened at first; but that has gone off, and he is now reconciled to the loss of the girl and the saving of his money.’

After that Paul told all his own story — the double story, both in regard to Melmotte and to Mrs Hurtle. As regarded the Railway, Roger could only tell him to follow explicitly the advice of his Liverpool friend. ‘I never believed in the thing, you know.’

‘Nor did I. But what could I do?’

‘I’m not going to blame you. Indeed, knowing you as I do, feeling sure that you intend to be honest, I would not for a moment insist on my own opinion, if it did not seem that Mr Ramsbottom thinks as I do. In such a matter, when a man does not see his own way clearly, it behoves him to be able to show that he has followed the advice of some man whom the world esteems and recognizes. You have to bind your character to another man’s character; and that other man’s character, if it be good, will carry you through. From what I hear Mr Ramsbottom’s character is sufficiently good; — but then you must do exactly what he tells you.’

But the Railway business, though it comprised all that Montague had in the world, was not the heaviest of his troubles. What was he to do about Mrs Hurtle? He had now, for the first time, to tell his friend that Mrs Hurtle had come to London and that he had been with her three or four times. There was this great difficulty in the matter, too — that it was very hard to speak of his engagement with Mrs Hurtle without in some sort alluding to his love for Henrietta Carbury. Roger knew of both loves; — had been very urgent with his friend to abandon the widow, and at any rate equally urgent with him to give up the other passion. Were he to marry the widow, all danger on the other side would be at an end. And yet, in discussing the question of Mrs Hu............