Taking the telegram from her pocket, she reperused it quietly. 'Most important,'--those were the first words. Sir Nugent Uffington, as she well knew, was anything but impulsive, and not in the least likely to use a term stronger than the occasion warranted; nor was it at all probable that, as he had arranged to visit Woodburn at the latter end of the week, and to spend some days there, he would come down, especially for a few hours, unless the business which brought him was of a pressing and particular nature. What could that business be? The first idea that occurred to Lady Forestfield's mind was that the influence, whatever it might have been, which had induced her husband to restore her to her former position, had waned; that the divorce action would be proceeded with, and she would again be driven forth an outcast on the world. The possibility, not the probability, of this being the explanation of the telegram was all that occurred to her; but she yet turned it over in her mind as though it were already an accomplished fact. It would be very terrible, she thought, to have again to face that wretched solitary life in the dull lodging, with all its sordid and mean surroundings; to have her miserable story again publicly commented on, and privately bandied from mouth to mouth, by those amongst whom her name was no more mentioned, and her very existence had long since been forgotten; it would be hard to give up that fresh love of life which, since her residence at Woodburn, had dawned upon her simultaneously with her appreciation of nature and the exquisite enjoyment of the country.
If this supposition were correct, she must have been at fault in the idea that the recent change in Lord Forestfield's conduct had been produced by Sir Nugent Uffington's agency, for she knew Uffington too well to suspect for a moment that anything which he had once taken in hand could be suffered to fail. What, then, could it be? For an instant a burning flush suffused May's neck as a thought, to which she had hitherto never dared to give attention, flashed across her mind. Could it be possible that this close and constant intimacy into which they had been thrown had led him to think of her with something warmer than those feelings of friendship which he had never indeed openly professed, but which by every action he had manifested towards her? She herself knew that for her own part--No, under other circumstances it might have been possible, but now it was hopeless; she had hitherto succeeded in prohibiting such a thought from entering her breast, and it should find a place there no more.