his evening thoughts; it
was as if they had been tired out and were not to be roused to further
work. Instead of arguments for confession, he could now feel the
presence of nothing but its evil consequences: the old dread of
disgrace came back--the old shrinking from the thought of raising a
hopeless barrier between himself and Nancy--the old disposition to rely
on chances which might be favourable to him, and save him from
betrayal. Why, after all, should he cut off the hope of them by his
own act? He had seen the matter in a wrong light yesterday. He had
been in a rage with Dunstan, and had thought of nothing but a thorough
break-up of their mutual understanding; but what it would be really
wisest for him to do, was to try and soften his father's anger against
Dunsey, and keep things as nearly as possible in their old condition.
If Dunsey did not come back for a few days (and Godfrey did not know
but that the rascal had enough money in his pocket to enable him to
keep away still longer), everything might blow over.

CHAPTER IX

Godfrey rose and took his own breakfast earlier than usual, but
lingered in the wainscoted parlour till his younger brothers had
finished their meal and gone out; awaiting his father, who always took
a walk with his managing-man before breakfast. Every one breakfasted
at a different hour in the Red House, and the Squire was always the
latest, giving a long chance to a rather feeble morning appetite before
he tried it. The table had been spread with substantial eatables
nearly two hours before he presented himself--a tall, stout man of
sixty, with a face in which the knit brow and rather hard glance seemed
contradicted by the slack and feeble mouth. His person showed marks of
habitual neglect, his dress was slovenly; and yet there was something
in the presence of the old Squire distinguishable from that of the
ordinary farmers in the parish, who were perhaps every whit as refined
as he, but, having slouched their way through life with a consciousness
of being in the vicinity of their "betters", wanted that
self-possession and authoritativeness of voice and carriage which
belonged to a man who thought of superiors as remote existences with
whom he had personally little more to do than with America or the
stars. The Squire had been used to parish homage all his life, used to
the presupposition that his family, his tankards, and everything that
was his, were the oldest and best; and a