bear the consequences of his
father's violent resentment for the wound inflicted on his family
pride--would have, perhaps, to turn his back on that hereditary ease
and dignity which, after all, was a sort of reason for living, and
would carry with him the certainty that he was banished for ever from
the sight and esteem of Nancy Lammeter. The longer the interval, the
more chance there was of deliverance from some, at least, of the
hateful consequences to which he had sold himself; the more
opportunities remained for him to snatch the strange gratification of
seeing Nancy, and gathering some faint indications of her lingering
regard. Towards this gratification he was impelled, fitfully, every
now and then, after having passed weeks in which he had avoided her as
the far-off bright-winged prize that only made him spring forward and
find his chain all the more galling. One of those fits of yearning was
on him now, and it would have been strong enough to have persuaded him
to trust Wildfire to Dunstan rather than disappoint the yearning, even
if he had not had another reason for his disinclination towards the
morrow's hunt. That other reason was the fact that the morning's meet
was near Batherley, the market-town where the unhappy woman lived,
whose image became more odious to him every day; and to his thought the
whole vicinage was haunted by her. The yoke a man creates for himself
by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature; and the
good-humoured, affectionate-hearted Godfrey Cass was fast becoming a
bitter man, visited by cruel wishes, that seemed to enter, and depart,
and enter again, like demons who had found in him a ready-garnished
home.

What was he to do this evening to pass the time? He might as well go
to the Rainbow, and hear the talk about the cock-fighting: everybody
was there, and what else was there to be done? Though, for his own
part, he did not care a button for cock-fighting. Snuff, the brown
spaniel, who had placed herself in front of him, and had been watching
him for some time, now jumped up in impatience for the expected caress.
But Godfrey thrust her away without looking at her, and left the room,
followed humbly by the unresenting Snuff--perhaps because she saw no
other career open to her.

CHAPTER IV

Dunstan Cass, setting off in the raw morning, at the judiciously quiet
pace of a man who is obliged to ride to cover on his hunter, had to
take his way along the lane which