ot enough for her.

Bellfield had opened the door, and it was upon him that the widow's
eye glanced as she left the room. Cheesacre saw it, and resolved to
resent the injury. "I'll tell you what it is, Bellfield," he said, as
he sat down moodily over the fire, "I won't have you coming here at
all, till this matter is settled."

"Till what matter is settled?" said Bellfield, filling his glass.

"You know what matter I mean."

"You take such a deuce of a time about it."

"No, I don't. I take as little time as anybody could. That other
fellow has only been dead about nine months, and I've got the thing
in excellent training already."

"And what harm do I do?"

"You disturb me, and you disturb her. You do it on purpose. Do you
suppose I can't see? I'll tell you what, now; if you'll go clean out
of Norwich for a month, I'll lend you two hundred pounds on the day
she becomes Mrs Cheesacre."

"And where am I to go to?"

"You may stay at Oileymead, if you like;--that is, on condition that
you do stay there."

"And be told that I hack the ham because it's not my own. Shall I
tell you a piece of my mind, Cheesacre?"

"What do you mean?"

"That woman has no more idea of marrying you than she has of marrying
the Bishop. Won't you fill your glass, old fellow? I know where the
tap is if you want another bottle. You may as well give it up, and
spend no more money in pink fronts and polished boots on her account.
You're a podgy man, you see, and Mrs Greenow doesn't like podgy men."

Cheesacre sat looking at him with his mouth open, dumb with surprise,
and almost paralysed with impotent anger. What had happened during
the last few hours to change so entirely the tone of his dependent
captain? Could it be that Bellfield had been there during the
morning, and that she had accepted him?

"You are very podgy, Cheesacre," Bellfield continued, "and then you
so often smell of the farm-yard; and you talk too much of your money
and your property. You'd have had a better chance if you had openly
talked to her of hers,--as I have done. As it is, you haven't any
chance at all."

Bellfield, as he thus spoke to the man opposite to him, went on
drinking his wine comfortably, and seemed to be chuckling with glee.
Cheesacre was so astounded, so lost in amazement that the creature
whom he had fed,--whom he had bribed with money out of his own
pocket, should thus turn against him, that for a while he could not
collect his thoughts or