ed it should, attracted
some attention among the worshippers. Old Naseby, for instance, had
observed him.

"There was a drunken-looking blackguard opposite us in church," he said
to his son as they drove home; "do you know who he was?"

"Some fellow--Van Tromp, I believe," said Dick.

"A foreigner too!" observed the Squire.

Dick could not sufficiently congratulate himself on the escape he had
effected. Had the Admiral met him with his father, what would have been
the result? And could such a catastrophe be long postponed? It seemed to
him as if the storm were nearly ripe; and it was so more nearly than he
thought.

He did not go to the cottage in the afternoon, withheld by fear and
shame; but when dinner was over at Naseby House, and the Squire had gone
off into a comfortable doze, Dick slipped out of the room, and ran
across country, in part to save time, in part to save his own courage
from growing cold; for he now hated the notion of the cottage or the
Admiral, and if he did not hate, at least feared to think of Esther. He
had no clue to her reflections; but he could not conceal from his own
heart that he must have sunk in her esteem, and the spectacle of her
infatuation galled him like an insult.

He knocked and was admitted. The room looked very much as on his last
visit, with Esther at the table and Van Tromp beside the fire; but the
expression of the two faces told a very different story. The girl was
paler than usual; her eyes were dark, the colour seemed to have faded
from round about them, and her swiftest glance was as intent as a stare.
The appearance of the Admiral, on the other hand, was rosy, and flabby,
and moist; his jowl hung over his shirt-collar, his smile was loose and
wandering, and he had so far relaxed the natural control of his eyes,
that one of them was aimed inward, as if to catch the growth of the
carbuncle. We are warned against bad judgments; but the Admiral was
certainly not sober. He made no attempt to rise when Richard entered,
but waved his pipe flightily in the air, and gave a leer of welcome.
Esther took as little notice of him as might be.

"Aha! Dick!" cried the painter. "I've been to church; I have, upon my
word. And I saw you there, though you didn't see me. And I saw a
devilish pretty woman, by Gad. If it were not for this baldness, and a
kind of crapulous air I can't disguise from myself--if it weren't for
this and that and t'other thing--I--I've forgot what I was sayin