arry a
penniless woman had he felt ever so strong a predilection for the
woman herself; no doubt Eleanor's fortune put all such difficulties
out of the question; but it was equally without doubt that his love
for her had crept upon him without the slightest idea on his part that
he could ever benefit his own condition by sharing her wealth.

When he had stood on the hearth-rug, counting the pattern and counting
also the future chances of his own life, the remembrances of Mrs.
Bold's comfortable income had certainly not damped his first assured
feeling of love for her. And why should it have done so? Need it have
done so with the purest of men? Be that as it may, Mr. Arabin decided
against himself; he decided that it had done so in his case, and that
he was not the purest of men.

He also decided, which was more to his purpose, that Eleanor did not
care a straw for him, and that very probably she did care a straw
for his rival. Then he made up his mind not to think of her any
more, and went on thinking of her till he was almost in a state to
drown himself in the little brook which ran at the bottom of the
archdeacon's grounds.

And ever and again his mind would revert to the Signora Neroni, and
he would make comparisons between her and Eleanor Bold, not always in
favour of the latter. The signora had listened to him, and flattered
him, and believed in him; at least she had told him so. Mrs. Bold
had also listened to him, but had never flattered him; had not always
believed in him; and now had broken from him in violent rage. The
signora, too, was the more lovely woman of the two, and had also
the additional attraction of her affliction--for to him it was an
attraction.

But he never could have loved the Signora Neroni as he felt that he
now loved Eleanor; and so he flung stones into the brook, instead of
flinging in himself, and sat down on its margin as sad a gentleman as
you shall meet in a summer's day.

He heard the dinner-bell ring from the churchyard, and he knew that
it was time to recover his self-possession. He felt that he was
disgracing himself in his own eyes, that he had been idling his
time and neglecting the high duties which he had taken upon himself
to perform. He should have spent this afternoon among the poor at
St. Ewold's, instead of wandering about at Plumstead, an ancient,
love-lorn swain, dejected and sighing, full of imaginary sorrows and
Wertherian grief. He was thoroughly ashamed of hims