People might gossip as much as ever they liked; but the two always congratulated themselves that they had never committed the supreme folly of falling in love with each other.

The woman had married Sir Henry merely in order to obtain money and position; and this man Flockart, who for years had been her most intimate associate, had ever remained behind her, to advise and to help her.
Perhaps had the Baronet not been afflicted he would have disapproved of this constant companionship, for he would, no doubt, have overheard in society certain tittle-tattle which, though utterly unfounded, would not have been exactly pleasant.

But as he was blind and never went into society, he remained in blissful ignorance, wrapped up in his mysterious "business" and his hobbies.
Gabrielle, on her return from school, had at first accepted Flockart as her friend.

It was he who took her for walks, who taught her to cast a fly, to shoot rooks, and to play the national winter game of Scotland--curling.

He had in the first few months of her return home done everything in his power to attract the young girl's friendship, while at the same time her ladyship showed herself extraordinarily well disposed towards her.
Within a year, however, by reason of various remarks made by people in her presence, and on account of the cold disdain with which Lady Heyburn treated her afflicted father, vague suspicions were aroused within her, suspicions which gradually grew to hatred, until she clung to her father, and, as his eyes and ears, took up a position of open defiance towards her mother and her adventurous friend.
The situation each day grew more and more strained.