Mr. Wogan's title of Hilton was now, thanks to the _Flying Post_, as familiar as his name; he refused both the one and the other to the servant, and was admitted to Rose Townley without any formalities. Her eyes flashed as they remarked his livery, but she was not in any concern about Mr. Wogan, and asked him no questions. She rose with the utmost coldness, did not give him her hand, and only the bare mockery of a bow, as though her indignation against Mr. Kelly was so complete that it must needs embrace his friend. 'I thought that he would have plucked up enough courage to come himself,' said she, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. 'He is a man of the meanest spirit,' replied Wogan, in a sullen agreement. 'It is a strange thing how easily one may be misled. Here have I been going up and down the world with him for years, and I never knew him until now, never knew the black heart of him, and his abominable perfidies.' Rose was taken aback by Wogan's speech. No doubt she expected a hotch-potch of excuses and arguments on Mr. Kelly's behalf, which would but have confirmed her in her own opinion; but falling in with her views, he took the words out of her mouth. 'So,' she said doubtfully, 'he has lost your friendship too?' 'To be sure,' cried Wogan in a heat, 'would you have me keep friends with a vile wretch whose thoughts writhe at the bottom of his soul like a poisonous nest of vipers?' Rose neither answered the question nor expressed any approval of Wogan's elegant figure describing Mr. Kelly's mind. 'Oh,' said she, 'then he did not send you to make his peace with me?' Wogan answered with all the appearances of reluctance. 'No. In fact the man was coming himself, and with a light heart. He made a great to-do about the infinite fairness and charity of women, which place them equal to the angels, and how you excelled all women in that and other womanly qualities. But I told him, on the contrary, that I knew your spirit, and that you were of too noble a pride to shut your eyes to a slight, and would certainly dismiss him. However, he would not be persuaded, so I slipped away from him and ran here, so that I might warn you against him.' Rose forgot to thank Mr. Wogan for his zeal on her behalf. Indeed her face, in spite of herself, had lightened for a second; in spite of herself her eyes had sparkled when Wogan spoke of the great faith Mr. Kelly had in her charity. 'It was more than a slight,' she said, 'I could forgive a slight--He would have come himself had not you prevented him.' 'But he is coming. He would have been here already, but that he paid a visit on the way to Colonel Montague to discover whether Lady Oxford's letters had been restored to her.' 'Lady Oxford's letters!' exclaimed Rose, her face flushing again with anger. 'To be sure,' said Wogan, 'you would know nothing of them. It is a fine story--the story of Lady Oxford's love-letters.'