Next time the Captain met his sister, he rounded upon her, and, according to common report, called her "a damned meddlesome fool" for interfering in his affairs. Thus matters were likely to become ravelled at the Grange. Perhaps it was to lull suspicion and allow the heated atmosphere to cool that the Captain soon after this betook himself to Newmarket, and thence to London. Before he went he gave a private hint to the head gamekeeper that he would not be inconsolable if that questionable functionary could manage to make out a case of night-poaching against Thomas Wanless. An underling heard of the plot and warned Thomas to take care, and though Thomas never poached, the warning was probably needful enough. The row at the Grange was the least significant of the consequences that flowed from Thomas Wanless's visit to the Vicarage Gardens. Mrs. Morgan had apparently indicated to her mother the suspicions she entertained as to the aims of Mrs. Codling, and Lady Harriet, afraid to tackle her son about his amours, attacked Mrs. Codling instead. It was plainly enough intimated to that scheming woman that Lady Harriet disapproved of the constant visits of the Captain to the Vicarage, and Mrs. Codling was asked to discourage them. A sensible person would have deferred to the wishes of the greatest lady in the parish on a point so delicate, but Mrs. Codling proved to be anything but sensible. Afraid of exciting the wrath of Lady Harriet by open hostility, she took refuge in underhand plots. The intercourse between the Captain and her daughter, which had hitherto been carried on, in a manner, openly, was now changed, with the mother's connivance, into a secret intrigue. By this change the whole moral attitude of the family became debased. Captain Wiseman was astute enough to see through the would-be mother-in-law's motives, and cunning enough to egg her on in a course of duplicity and folly. His mother need know nothing, he represented, till all was over. No doubt she would at first resent a secret marriage, but when she saw she could no longer help it, her wrath would soon cool down.