This story unfortunately received confirmation during the morning; and on the following day, when he rode over to the Rectory to see Purvis, it received a still more disquieting aspect. Emma had been seen in the company of a Captain Conway at A----, a man who was said to be highly connected, though of this there was no certain proof--but who, on the other hand, was well known to be a profligate. Heavy at heart he returned to the Castle. As he sat with Lady Osborne over the fire that night, she told him more of her history than ever he had previously known. He had always deplored the inferiority of her son and daughter to their mother, but hitherto it had never occurred to him that she had been conscious of it herself. "I have known but little happiness in my life," she said. "My father, Lord Foulke, was a gambler; and, in view of the increasing difficulty of living, my mother believed it to be her duty to marry off all her daughters as soon as they came out. I was the third of five girls, and married when scarcely sixteen--no more than a child. I could not endure Lord Osborne--my every instinct revolted against him--but though I implored my father and mother, with tears, to spare me, they would not listen to me. No one may know the misery of my married life. When I was about twenty-three, however, my husband died, leaving me with two young children--the boy so backward that I believed him for a time to be deficient; but as I spared no effort to develop him he gradually improved. Not long afterwards my father died from an accident. The shock brought a stroke on my mother, depriving her of the power of speech, which she never afterwards recovered, though she lingered on for several years. My brother, despite the remonstrances of the doctor, insisted on her removal to the Dower House, and short as was the drive, she never recovered from it; so that I dared not attempt to bring her here. As it was seldom possible to leave her, I could see but little of my children, for as the Dower House was small, and indifferently built, she could not endure their noise. But never had I loved her so well. Qualities, that I had never before discerned in her, now showed themselves, and we were drawn together as we never had been before. At her death I returned home, to find my daughter almost a stranger to me. Julia was now fourteen, and her pretty manners, which I had believed to be the expression of her affection for me, had merely served as a mask to her serious defects of character. Perhaps unjustly, I dismissed her governess, believing her to be blamed, and endeavoured myself to correct them, but I had come too late, and it only served to estrange her the further. Osborne, on the other hand, has always held for me the simple affection of his childhood, and his faults are rather of a negative than of a positive character, but he cares for little beyond hunting and fishing--we have almost nothing in common. Until you came,