The scene within the chamber-door was Mrs.Millborne standing before her dressing-table, looking across to her husband in the dressing-room adjoining, where he was sitting down, his eyes fixed on the floor.
'Why did you come and disturb my life a second time ?' she harshly asked.
'Why did you pester me with your conscience, till I was driven to accept you to get rid of your importunity?
Frances and I were doing well: the one desire of my life was that she should marry that good young man.

And now the match is broken off by your cruel interference! Why did you show yourself in my world again, and raise this scandal upon my hard-won respectability--won by such weary years of labour as none will ever know!' She bent her face upon the table and wept passionately.
There was no reply from Mr.Millborne.

Frances lay awake nearly all that night, and when at breakfast-time the next morning still no letter appeared from Mr.Cope, she entreated her mother to go to Ivell and see if the young man were ill.
Mrs.Millborne went, returning the same day.

Frances, anxious and haggard, met her at the station.
Was all well?
Her mother could not say it was; though he was not ill.
One thing she had found out, that it was a mistake to hunt up a man when his inclinations were to hold aloof.

Returning with her mother in the cab Frances insisted upon knowing what the mystery was which plainly had alienated her lover.