Considering that Ida had no very strongly-marked personality, it was wonderful that the Colonel should be so deeply in love with her. He was clever in his own way, and not without brain-power inside and outside his own particular military profession. His bravery was undeniable, his tact considerable, and he had left the Army on account of family affairs with the name of one who had cut short a brilliant career unnecessarily. Towton assuredly would have risen to be a general had he not retired when the family estates came into his possession. But now that he had abandoned his profession his one aim was to marry and lead a quiet domestic life. He did not wish for a clever wife, or a wealthy wife, or a particularly lovely wife, as he was too matter-of-fact to be romantic. His dream was of a peaceful hearth and a house perfectly managed by a gentle wife. In Ida he believed that he saw the helpmate he so greatly desired: one who would make her husband's will her law, and who would be a cheerful companion. Her moods he believed to be the result of lack of guidance, and he flattered himself that when she became Mrs. Towton he would be able to render her less freakish. Ida's nature was so impressionable that he thought it could be easily moulded, and in this he no doubt was right. Many of the girl's faults were due to the over-indulgence of her father, and to the lack of a firm hand to lead her in the right way. She would have welcomed a master, having one of those natures responsive to suggestion. And, in an unconscious way, the Colonel appealed to her as a strong, kind-hearted man, who could shelter her from the storms of life better than any one else could. In point of fact, the two were made for one another, and, but for the intrusion of Maunders, their course of true love would have run smooth.
However, Colonel Towton was extremely obstinate, and, having decided that Ida was the very wife he desired to preside over his dinner-table, he was determined not to let her be snatched from him by any rival. He admitted with some dread that Maunders was a formidable wooer, and moreover guessed, with the keen instinct of a man in love, that Frances Hest had too much control over the girl. For one thing, she had induced Ida to go to Diabella, a thing Towton would never have permitted had he been able to help it. He knew from his Indian experience only too well that there is truth in occultism, and that an impressionable being--such as Ida truly was--could easily be obsessed by strong suggestion. He had no reason to doubt Miss Hest, and did not think for one moment that she was his enemy in any way: but, with the assistance of suggestions from Diabella, she might lead Ida into unhealthy ways. And all those dealings with the unseen with which psychics have to do were unhealthy in the Colonel's very material eyes. Already, as he had seen for himself, the visit to Diabella had upset Ida; so, whatever the harm done might be, it was necessary to undo it by proving the woman to be a fraud. Towton therefore ascended the stairs to the consulting-room of Diabella with the intention of learning if the fortune-teller was a humbug. Once assured of that, he resolved to explain her methods to Miss Dimsdale and so prevent her trusting as truth whatever the woman had said. Then Ida's indignation at being duped, as the Colonel believed she had been, would probably shake Miss Hest's position. Towton felt certain that Frances was more friendly to Maunders than to himself, and at one sweep he hoped to get rid of both. Afterwards Ida would be more willing to become his wife.