we were."

"Of course I was a villain. But it was only once; and your Lordship
was so rough to me! I am not saying but what I was a villain. Think
of what I did for myself by that one piece of wickedness! Master of
hounds! member of the club! And the horse would have run in my name
and won the Leger! And everybody knew as your Lordship and me was
together in him!" Then he burst out into a paroxysm of tears and
sobbing.

The young Lord certainly could not take the man into partnership
again, nor could he restore to him either the hounds or his club,--or
his clean hands. Nor did he know in what way he could serve the man,
except by putting his hand into his pocket,--which he did. Tifto
accepted the gratuity, and ultimately became an annual pensioner on
his former noble partner, living on the allowance made him in some
obscure corner of South Wales.

CHAPTER LXXVI

On Deportment

Frank Tregear had come up to town at the end of February. He remained
in London, with an understanding that he was not to see Lady Mary
again till the Easter holidays. He was then to pay a visit to
Matching, and to enter in, it may be presumed, on the full fruition
of his advantages as accepted suitor. All this had been arranged with
a good deal of precision,--as though there had still been a hope left
that Lady Mary might change her mind. Of course there was no such
hope. When the Duke asked the young man to dine with him, when he
invited him to drink that memorable glass of wine, when the young
man was allowed, in the presence of the Boncassens, to sit next Lady
Mary, it was of course settled. But the father probably found some
relief in yielding by slow degrees. "I would rather that there
should be no correspondence till then," he had said both to Tregear
and to his daughter. And they had promised there should be no
correspondence. At Easter they would meet. After Easter Mary was to
come up to London to be present at her brother's wedding, to which
also Tregear had been formally invited; and it was hoped that then
something might be settled as to their own marriage. Tregear, with
the surgeon's permission, took his seat in Parliament. He was
introduced by two leading Members on the Conservative side, but
immediately afterwards found himself seated next to his friend
Silverbridge on the top bench behind the ministers. The House was
very full, as there was a feverish report abroad that Sir Timothy
Beeswax intended to make a statem