"Not a doubt on earth, Mrs. Butler. She never told me so outright,--nor yet didn't her mother;--but if he didn't, I'll give my head for a cream cheese. Laws love you, Mrs. Butler, I know what's what well enough. I know when a girl's wild and flighty, and thinks of things as she oughtn't;--and I know when she's proper behaved, and gives a young man encouragement only when it becomes her." "Of course you do, Mrs. Sturt." "It isn't for me, Mrs. Butler, to say anything against your papa. Nobody can have more respect for their clergyman than Sturt has and I; and before it was all settled like, Sturt never had a word with Mr. Comfort about tithes; but, Mrs. Butler, I think your papa was wrong here. As far as I can learn, it was he that told Mrs. Ray that this young man wasn't all that he should be." "Papa meant it for the best. There were strange things said about him, you know." "I never believes one word of what I hears, and never will. People are such liars; bean't they, Mrs. Butler? And I didn't believe a word again him. He's as fine a young man as you'd wish to see in a hundred years, and of course that goes a long way with a young woman. Well, Mrs. Butler, I'll tell Mrs. Ray what you say, but I'm afeard it's too late; I'm afeard it is. He's of a stubborn sort, I think. He's one of them that says, 'If you will not when you may, when you will you shall have nay.'" Mrs. Cornbury still entertained hope that the stubbornness of the stubborn man might be overcome; but as to that she said nothing to Mrs. Sturt. Mrs. Sturt, with what friendly tact she possessed, made her communication to Mrs. Ray, but it may be doubted whether more harm than good was not thus done. "And he didn't owe a shilling then?" asked Mrs. Ray. "Not a shilling," said Mrs. Sturt. "And he is going to come back to Baslehurst about this brewery business?" "There's not a doubt in life about that," answered Mrs. Sturt. If these tidings could have come in time they would have been very salutary; but what was Mrs. Ray to do with them now? She felt that she could not honestly withhold them from Rachel; and yet she knew not how to tell them without adding to Rachel's misery. It was very improbable that Rachel should hear anything about Rowan from other lips than her own. It was clear that Mrs. Sturt did not intend to speak to her, and also clear that Mrs. Sturt expected that Mrs. Ray would do so.