His Grace — page 169: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HIS GRACE. 163 we were going to resume the ways and habits which had sufficed for our contentment a short time before; but I don’t think we kept up the pretence particularly well. I was always half hoping, half fearing that she would confide in me, while she, very likely, thought my man- ner dry and unsympathetic. It could not well be other- wise, now that we shared a secret which neither of us chose to allude to in words. On the third day I en- countered Nora, just before luncheon, in the garden, whither I had betaken myself for a breath of fresh air, and I forget how it was that we began to speak of Lady Deverell. “Did she say anything to you about Mr. Burgess ?” Nora asked. “Well, yes,” I answered ; “ she said something about him. I should have been glad to tell her that you were no longer engaged to him; but, of course, I couldn’t do that without your permission.” ‘“‘T suppose she said I had treated him badly, didn’t she?” ““T believe that was the gist of her remarks. Any- how, she didn’t think you were leading the sort of life that a future country parson’s wife ought to lead. She also had the kindness to inform me that people were chattering about your having taken up your residence here as the guest of a bachelor—which was sufficiently ridiculous, considering the rank of the bachelor in question.”’ “ Utterly ridiculous,” agreed Nora, with only a slight change of color. “ Still she was quite right in accusing me of having behaved badly to Mr. Burgess; I wish with all my heart that I could have behaved better to him! But I couldn’t.” Eomichoo cS (e(e) im