Mrs.
Pomfret took an opportunity of speaking to him apart, a bright smile on her good face.
"Of course we know who did much, if not everything, to bring it about.
Rosamund came and told me how beautifully you had pleaded Norbert's cause, and Norbert confided to my husband that, but for you, he would most likely have married a girl he really didn't care about at all.

I doubt whether a _mere man_ ever did such a thing so discreetly and successfully before!" In October, Will began to waver in his resolve not to go down into Suffolk before Christmas.

There came a letter from his mother which deeply moved him; she spoke of old things as well as new, and declared that in her husband and in her children no woman had ever known truer happiness.

This was at the middle of the week; Will all but made up his mind to take an early train on the following Sunday.

On Friday he wrote to Jane, telling her to expect him, and, as he walked home from the shop that evening he felt glad that he had overcome the feelings which threatened to make this first visit something of a trial to his self-respect.
"There's a telegram a-waiting for you, sir," said Mrs.Wick, as he entered.
The telegram contained four words: "Mother ill.