He said no more. To keep the fact from the clear-sighted, sensible Jupps would be just an impossibility; and he meant to tell his wife as soon as he got home. They passed through the waiting-room to the platform. Mrs. Chester took her seat in one of the carriages; he handed in the basket of trout, and stood back. Just before the train started, she suddenly beckoned to him. "Robert," she began in a low voice, putting her head out at the window to speak, "I'm going to give you a caution. Don't you carry on any of that nonsensical flirting with Rose Jupp, should you ever happen to be together in the presence of Lady Ellis. You make yourself utterly ridiculous with that girl." He looked very much amused. "A couple of sinful scapegoats! I am astonished you ever have us at your house!" "There you are, mocking me again. You may think as you please, Robert, but it is excessively absurd in a married man. I saw you kiss Rose Jupp the other day." He broke into a laugh. "Anything of that before Lady Ellis would be an awful mistake. It might frighten her away again." "Oh, we will both put on our best behaviour for the old Begum. Do not let doubts of us disturb your sleep, Penelope." "She is not old, but I daresay she knows what propriety is," sharply concluded Mrs. Chester as the train puffed off. And Mr. Lake, quitting the station, went home laughing. He found his wife in a reverie. The feeling, that she had done wrong to promise to go to Mrs. Chester's, was making itself unmistakably heard, and Clara tried to analyse it. Why should it be wrong? It was difficult to say. Sunday travelling? But she had gone several times before to spend Sunday with Mrs. Chester, gone and returned the same day; for Guild Rectory, where Mrs. Chester had lived, was short of bedrooms. No, it was not the idea of Sunday travelling that disturbed her, and she could find no other reason. Finally she gave up the trouble of guessing, and her husband came in. "Were you not too early for the train, Robert?" "I should think so. Penelope confessed that she wiled me out to talk of her plans. I'll tell you about them directly. What do you think she wound up with, Clara, just as the train was starting?" He had sat down in a large armchair, and was holding his wife before him by the waist. "With an injunction not to flirt so much with Rose Jupp! Which is absurd in itself, she says, and might frighten away the grand Indian Begum." Clara Lake laughed. She was accustomed to witness her husband's free rattling manners with others, but not a shadow of jealousy had yet arisen. She believed his _love_ to be hers, just as truly and exclusively as hers was his; and nothing as yet had shaken the belief. CHAPTER III. Clara Lake's Dream.[1] [Footnote 1: The dream is not fiction: it is but transcribed, even to the minutest particular.]