no more. The rest of the story has been told. Both of them had only been playing at love, and neither of them was hurt. Had it not been for those unfortunately bold and unmaidenly letters which remained in Mr Portland’s possession, Nora would long ago have forgotten all about the matter. But there had been something in Nell Llewellyn, fallen woman though she was, that had made a much deeper impression on the heart of Mr Portland, if, indeed, he possessed such an article. He had not proposed to marry her--it was not much in his way to consider marriage a necessary accompaniment to respectability; but, had Nell made marriage a condition of their union, he would have yielded to her wishes sooner or later. There was something about her grand devotion to Ilfracombe that attracted his worldly nature, that was used to associate with the most mercenary of her sex; and when she blazed out at him in her passionately indignant manner, repudiating with scorn the idea of his advances, he admired her still more. He thought Ilfracombe a fool to have given up the one woman for the other, but he would have been the last man to have told him so. He was not going to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. And a very disagreeable feeling had been engendered in him by the knowledge of Nell’s supposed fate. He did not want to mention her name, nor to think of her after that. It was a painful reminiscence which he did his best to drown in the distractions of cards and wine. Things were in just this condition when they all journeyed up to Usk together, and Mr Portland’s portmanteau and plaids were carried over to the rooms at Panty-cuckoo Farm. Nell was like a wild creature after she had discovered for certain who their owner was. To meet Mr Portland, of all men in the world, would seal her fate. Where could she fly in order to hide herself from him? what do to avoid the contact of his presence? She dared not leave the house for fear of meeting him; she was afraid even to leave her own room lest he should have taken it into his head to explore the dairy or bakehouse. Her mother did not know what had come to her. She grew quite cross at last, and thought it must be the arrival of the grand folks at the Hall that had made her daughter so flighty and useless and forgetful. ‘Just as I want all the help you can give me,’ she grumbled, ‘and it’s little enough use you are to me at the best of times, you get one of your lardy-dardy, high-flier fits on, and go shivering and shaking about the house, as if you expected to meet a ghost in the passage or the cellar. Now, what made you run away in that flighty fashion just now, when you were in the middle of doing the lodgers’ rooms? I went in expecting to find them finished, and there were half the things upset and you nowhere.’ ‘I thought I heard one of the gentlemen coming across the grass, and so I left the room till he should be gone again.’