e shook hands manfully, at the full
outstretch of their arms, in a way so like them, to Rosamund's
thinking--that is, in a way so unlike any other possible couple of men so
situated--that the humour of the sight eclipsed all the pleasantries of
Captain Baskelett. 'Good-bye, sir,' Nevil said heartily; and Everard
Romfrey was not behind-hand with the cordial ring of his 'Good-bye,
Nevil'; and upon that they separated. Rosamund would have been willing to
speak to her beloved of his false Renee--the Frenchwoman, she termed her,
i.e. generically false, needless to name; and one question quivered on
her tongue's tip: 'How, when she had promised to fly with you, how could
she the very next day step to the altar with him now her husband?' And,
if she had spoken it, she would have added, 'Your uncle could not have
set his face against you, had you brought her to England.' She felt
strongly the mastery Nevil Beauchamp could exercise even over his uncle
Everard. But when he was gone, unquestioned, merely caressed, it came to
her mind that he had all through insisted on his possession of this
particular power, and she accused herself of having wantonly helped to
ruin his hope--a matter to be rejoiced at in the abstract; but what
suffering she had inflicted on him! To quiet her heart, she persuaded
herself that for the future she would never fail to believe in him and
second him blindly, as true love should; and contemplating one so brave,
far-sighted, and self-assured, her determination seemed to impose the
lightest of tasks.

Practically humane though he was, and especially toward cattle and all
kinds of beasts, Mr. Romfrey entertained no profound fellow-feeling for
the negro, and, except as the representative of a certain amount of
working power commonly requiring the whip to wind it up, he inclined to
despise that black spot in the creation, with which our civilization
should never have had anything to do. So he pronounced his mind, and the
long habit of listening to oracles might grow us ears to hear and
discover a meaning in it. Nevil's captures and releases of the grinning
freights amused him for awhile. He compared them to strings of bananas,
and presently put the vision of the whole business aside by talking of
Nevil's banana-wreath. He desired to have Nevil out of it. He and Cecil
handed Nevil in his banana-wreath about to their friends. Nevil, in his
banana-wreath, was set preaching 'humanitomtity.' At any rate, they
cont