CHAPTER XX.
LADY MAULEVRIER'S LETTER-BAG.
Although Maulevrier had assured his grandmother that John Hammond would take flight at the first warning of Lesbia's return, Lady Maulevrier's dread of any meeting between her granddaughter and that ineligible lover determined her in making such arrangements as should banish Lesbia from Fellside, so long as there seemed the slightest danger of such a meeting.

She knew that Lesbia had loved her fortuneless suitor; and she did not know that the wound was cured, even by a season in the little-great world of Cannes.

Now that she, the ruler of that household, was a helpless captive in her own apartments, she felt that Lesbia at Fellside would be her own mistress, and hemmed round with the dangers that beset richly-dowered beauty and inexperienced youth.
John Hammond might be playing a very deep game, perhaps assisted by Maulevrier.

He might ostensibly leave Fellside before Lesbia's return, yet lurk in the neighbourhood, and contrive to meet her every day.

If Maulevrier encouraged this folly, they might be married and over the border, before her ladyship--fettered, impotent as she was--could interfere.
Lady Maulevrier felt that Georgie Kirkbank was her strong rock.