a gentleman every inch of him--an English
gentleman, spotless in linen, speckless in broadcloth, though his dress
was far from new; the freshness of sound health and a clear conscience
on his handsome face, though he was no longer young. His abundant hair,
steel-grey, slightly crisped under his hat, not curling exactly, but
with a becoming twist in it--clerical, yet not too clerical, a man given
to no extremes, decorously churchmanlike, yet liberal and tolerant of
the world. Though she was too wise to compromise her own comfort by
marrying him, Mrs. Hurst felt that there was a great pleasure in making
his daughters anxious about her "intentions," and that even to be said
to be in love with such a man was no shame, but rather the reverse.

He went away accordingly, taking a short cut to the railway, and thus
missing Cotsdean, who came breathless ten minutes after he was gone, and
followed him to the train; but too late.

"Well, well," Cotsdean said to himself, wiping his forehead, "Old Tozer
has plenty, it ain't nothing to him to pay. They can settle it between
'em."

Cotsdean himself was easier in his mind than he had ever been before on
such an occasion. His clergyman, though personally an awful and
respect-inspiring personage, was so far as money went a man of straw, as
he well knew, and his name on a bill was very little worth; but Tozer
was a man who could pay his way. A hundred and fifty pounds, or even ten
times that, would not ruin the old shopkeeper. Cotsdean's sense of
commercial honour was not so very keen that the dishonouring of his bill
in the circumstances should give him a very serious pang. He would not
be sold up, or have an execution put into his shop when the other party
to the bill was so substantial a person. Of course Tozer, when he signed
it, must have been told all about it, and Cotsdean did not see how with
two such allies against ruin, anything very serious could befall him. He
was uneasy indeed, but his uneasiness had no such force in it as before.
He went back to his shop and his business prepared to take the matter as
calmly as possible. He was but passive in it. It could not harm him much
in the eyes of his banker, who knew his affairs too well to be much
astonished at any such incident, and Tozer and Mr. May must settle it
between them. It was their affair.

Meanwhile Mr. May rattled along in the railway towards the Hall. He got
a dog-cart at the little inn at the station to take him o