ast of anyone in her life.
There was in her a vehemence of antagonism to the man's manner, his
pessimism, his infidelity, his very ways of speaking and looking, which
astonished even herself.

Robert's eager soul meanwhile, for once irresponsive to Catherine's, was
full of nothing but the Squire. At last the moment was come, and that
dumb spiritual friendship he had formed through these long months with
the philosopher and the _savant_ was to be tested by sight and speech of
the man. He bade himself a hundred times pitch his expectations low. But
curiosity and hope were keen, in spite of everything.

Ah, those parish worries! Robert caught the smoke of Mile End in
the distance, curling above the twilight woods, and laid about him
vigorously with his stick on the Squire's shrubs, as he thought of those
poisonous hovels, those ruined lives! But, after all, it might be mere
ignorance, and that wretch Henslowe might have been merely trading on
his master's morbid love of solitude.

And then--all men have their natural conceits. Robert Elsmere would not
have been the very human creature he was if, half-consciously, he had
not counted a good deal on his own powers of influence. Life had been to
him so far one long social success of the best kind. Very likely, as he
walked on to the great house over whose threshold lay the answer to the
enigma of months, his mind gradually filled with some naive young
dream of winning the Squire, playing him with all sorts of honest arts,
beguiling him back to life--to his kind.

Those friendly messages of his through Mrs. Darcy had been very
pleasant.

'I wonder whether my Oxford friends have been doing me a good turn
with the Squire,' he said to Rose, laughing. 'He knows the Provost, of
course. If they talked me over it is to be hoped my scholarship didn't
come up. Precious little the Provost used to think of my abilities for
Greek prose!'

Rose yawned a little behind her gloved hand. Robert had already talked a
good deal about the Squire, and he was certainly the only person in
the group who was thinking of him. Even Catherine, absorbed in other
anxieties, had forgotten to feel any thrill at their approaching
introduction to the man who must of necessity mean so much to herself
and Robert.

'Mr. and Mrs. Robert Elsmere,' said the butler, throwing open the carved
and gilded doors.

Catherine following her husband, her fine grave head and beautiful neck
held a little more erect t