had been staying up on Croridge
for the last two days, Fleetwood sent his hardest shot of the eyes at
Gower. Let her be absent: it was equal to the first move of war, and
absolved him from contemplated proposals to make amends. But the enforced
solitary companionship with this ruminator of a fellow set him asking
whether the godless dog he had picked up by the wayside was not incarnate
another of the sins he had to expiate. Day after day, almost hourly, some
new stroke fell on him. Why? Was he selected for persecution because he
was wealthy? The Fates were driving him in one direction, no doubt of
that.

This further black mood evaporated, and like a cessation of English
storm-weather bequeathed him gloom. Ashamed of the mood, he was
nevertheless directed by its final shadows to see the ruminating tramp in
Gower, and in Madge the prize-fighter's jilt: and round about Esslemont a
world eyeing an Earl of Fleetwood, who painted himself the man he was, or
was held to be, by getting together such a collection, from the daughter
of the Old Buccaneer to the ghastly corpse of Ambrose Mallard. Why,
clearly, wealth was the sole origin and agent of the mischief. With
somewhat less of it, he might have walked in his place among the nation's
elect, the 'herd of the gilt horns,' untroubled by ambitions and ideas.

Arriving thus far, he chanced to behold Gower and Madge walking over the
grounds near the western plantation, and he regretted the disappearance
of them, with the fellow talking hard into the girl's ear. Those two
could think he had been of some use. The man pretending to philosophical
depth was at any rate honest; one could swear to the honesty of the girl,
though she had been a reckless hussy. Their humble little hopes and means
to come to union approached, after a fashion, hymning at his ears. Those
two were pleasanter to look on than amorous lords and great ladies, who
are interesting only when they are wicked.

Four days of desolate wanderings over the estate were occupied chiefly in
his decreeing the fall of timber that obstructed views, and was the more
imperatively doomed for his bailiff's intercession. 'Sound wood' the
trees might be: they had to assist in defraying the expense of separate
establishments. A messenger to Queeney from Croridge then announced the
Countess's return 'for a couple of hours.' Queeney said it was the day
when her ladyship examined the weekly bills of the household. That was in
the early