ther pity the enemy nor distrust his own cause till the strife was
done.

Amongst all the indecision there was about, Duplay had the merit of a
clear vision of his own purpose and his own desires.

XIII

IN THE LONG GALLERY

The man with whom the fighters and the doubters were concerned, in whose
defence or attack efforts and hopes were enlisted, round whom hesitation
and struggles gathered, was thinking very little about his champions or
his enemies. No fresh whispers of danger had come to Harry Tristram's
ears. He knew nothing of Neeld and could not think of that quiet old
gentleman as a possible menace to his secret. He trusted Mina Zabriska
and relied on the influence which he had proved himself to possess over
her. He did not believe that Duplay would stick to his game, and was not
afraid of him if he did. The engagement was accomplished; the big check,
or the prospect of it, lay ready to his hand; his formal proofs, perfect
so long as they were unassailed, awaited the hour when formal proofs
would be required. To all appearance he was secure in his inheritance
and buttressed against any peril. No voice was raised, no murmur was
heard, to impugn the right of the new Lord Tristram of Blent. The object
of all those long preparations, which had occupied his mother and
himself for so many years, was achieved. He sat in Addie Tristram's
place, and none said him nay.

His mind was not much on these matters at all. Even his engagement
occupied him very little. Janie's letter had arrived and had been read.
It came at mid-day, and the evening found it still unacknowledged. It
had broken in from outside as it were, intruding like something foreign
into the life that he had begun to live on the evening before Addie
Tristram was buried, the evening when for an instant he had thought he
saw her phantom by the Pool; a life foreshadowed by the new mood which
Mina had noticed in him while Lady Tristram still lived, but brought
into reality by the presence of another. It seemed a new life coming to
one who was almost a new man, so much of the unexpected in him did it
reveal to himself. He had struggled against it, saying that the Monday
morning would see an end of this unlooked-for episode of feeling and of
companionship. Accident stepped in; Gainsborough lay in bed with a chill
and could not move. Harry acquiesced in the necessity of his remaining,
not exactly with pleasure, rather with a sense that something had begu