and he hated. All his convictions and
prejudices were for life.

Harry's marriage had been a blow at the roots of all his conscious
existence. The Sandals had always married in their own county,
Cumberland ladies of honorable pedigree, good daughters of the Church of
England, good housewives, gentle and modest women, with more or less
land and gold as their dowry. Emily Beverley would have been precisely
such a wife. And in a moment, even while Harry was speaking, the squire
had contrasted this Beatrice Lanza with her;--a foreigner,--an Italian,
of all foreigners most objectionable; a subject of the Papal States; a
member of the Romish Church; a woman of obscure birth, poor and
portionless, and in ill-health; worse than all, a public woman, who had
sung for money, and yet who had made Harry desert his home and country
and profession for her. And with this train of thought another ran
parallel,--the shame and the wrong of it all. The disgrace to his wife
and daughters, the humiliation to himself. Each bitter thought beat on
his heart like the hammer on the anvil. They fought and blended with
each other. He could not master one. He felt himself being beaten to the
ground. He made agonizing efforts to retain control over the surging
wave of anguish, rising, rising, rising from his breast to his brain.
And failing to do so, he fell with the mighty cry of one who, even in
the death agony, protests against the victor.

The news spread as if all the birds in the air carried it. There were a
dozen physicians in Seat-Sandal before noon. There was a crowd of
shepherds around it, waiting in silent groups for their verdict. All the
afternoon the gentlemen of the Dales were coming and going with offers
of help and sympathy; and in the lonely parlor the rector was softly
pacing up and down, muttering, as he walked, passages from the "Order
for the Visitation of the Sick":--

"O Saviour of the world, who by thy cross and precious blood hast
redeemed us, save us, and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

"Spare us good Lord. Spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy
most precious blood.

"Shut not up thy tender mercies in displeasure; but make him to hear of
joy and gladness.

"Deliver him from the fear of the enemy. Lift up the light of thy
countenance upon him. Amen."

CHAPTER IX.

ESAU.

"To be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering."

"Now conscience wakes