He would go in the evening, he said to himself, when they could not watch him from the house.
But she was clever at carrying out her own will, that countess-dowager; more than a match for the single-minded young man.

She wrote an urgent letter to Dr.Ashton, setting forth her own and her daughter's danger if her nephew, as she styled him, was received at the Rectory; and she despatched it privately.
It brought forth a letter from Dr.Ashton to Lord Hartledon; a kind but peremptory mandate, forbidding him to show himself at the Rectory until the illness was over.

Dr.Ashton reminded his future son-in-law that it was not particularly on his own account he interposed this veto, but for the sake of the neighbourhood generally.

If they were to prevent the fever from spreading, it was absolutely necessary that no chance visitors should be running into the Rectory and out of it again, to carry possible infection to the parish.
Lord Hartledon could only acquiesce.

The note was written in terms so positive as rather to surprise him; but he never suspected the undercurrent that had been at work.