e is none," he continued. "I feel, Mrs. Fenwick,
that I do not know what to do with myself or how to hold myself. Of
course it is nonsense to talk about dying, but I do feel as though if
I didn't die I should go crazy. I can't settle my mind to a single
thing."

"It is fresh with you yet, Harry," she said. She had never called him
Harry before, though her husband did so always, and now she used the
name in sheer tenderness.

"I don't know why such a thing should be different with me than with
other people," he said; "only perhaps I am weaker. But I've known
from the very first that I have staked everything upon her. I have
never questioned to myself that I was going for all or nothing.
I have seen it before me all along, and now it has come. Oh, Mrs.
Fenwick, if God would strike me dead this moment, it would be a
mercy!" And then he threw himself on the ground at her feet. He was
not there a moment before he was up again. "If you knew how I despise
myself for all this, how I hate myself!"

She would not leave him, but stayed there till he consented to come
down with her to the Vicarage. He should dine there, and Frank
should walk back with him at night. As to that question of Mr.
Chamberlaine's visit, respecting which Mrs. Fenwick did not feel
herself competent to give advice herself, it should become matter of
debate between them and Frank, and then a man and horse could be sent
to Salisbury on Sunday morning. As he walked down to the Vicarage
with that pretty woman at his elbow, things perhaps were a little
better with him.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE REV. HENRY FITZACKERLEY CHAMBERLAINE.

It was decided that evening at the Vicarage that it would be better
for all parties that the reverend uncle from Salisbury should be told
to make his visit, and spend the next week at Hampton Privets; that
is, that he should come on the Monday and stay till the Saturday.
The letter was written down at the Vicarage, as Fenwick feared that
it would never be written if the writing of it were left to the
unassisted energy of the Squire. The letter was written, and the
Vicar, who walked back to Hampton Privets with his friend, took care
that it was given to a servant on that night.

On the Sunday nothing was seen of Mr. Gilmore. He did not come to
church, nor would he dine at the Vicarage. He remained the whole day
in his own house, pretending to write, trying to read, with accounts
before him, with a magazine in his hand, even