forget! He shrinks from himself as one shrinks from a man
capable of injuring anything weak and helpless. To despise the world's
social code, and then to fall conspicuously below its simplest articles;
to aim at being pure intelligence, pure open-eyed rationality, and not
even to succeed in being a gentleman, as the poor commonplace world
understands it! Oh, to fall at her feet, and ask her pardon before
parting for ever! But no--no more posing; no more dramatising. How can
he get away most quietly--make least sign? The thought of that walk home
in the darkness fills him with a passion of irritable impatience.

* * * * *

'Look at that Romney, Mr. Elsmere; just look at it!' cried Dr. Meyrick
excitedly; 'did you ever see anything finer? There was one of those
London dealer fellows down here last summer offered the squire four
thousand pounds down on the nail for it.'

In this way Meyrick had been taking Robert round the drawing-room, doing
the honours of every stick and stone in it, his eyeglass in his eye, his
thin old face shining with pride over the Wendover possessions. And so
the two gradually neared the oriel where the squire and Mr. Bickerton
were standing.

Robert was in twenty minds as to any further conversation with the
squire. After the ladies had gone, while every nerve in him was still
tingling with anger, he had done his best to keep up indifferent talk on
local matters with Mr. Bickerton. Inwardly he was asking himself whether
he should ever sit at the squire's table and eat his bread again. It
seemed to him that they had had a brush which would be difficult to
forget. And as he sat there before the squire's wine, hot with righteous
heat, all his grievances against the man and the landlord crowded upon
him. A fig for intellectual eminence if it make a man oppress his
inferiors and bully his equals!

But as the minutes passed on, the rector had cooled down. The sweet,
placable, scrupulous nature began to blame itself. 'What, play your
cards so badly, give up the game so rashly, the very first round?
Nonsense! Patience and try again. There must be some cause in the
background. No need to be white-livered, but every need, in the case of
such a man as the squire, to take no hasty needless offence.'

So he had cooled and cooled, and now here were Meyrick and he close to
the squire and his companion. The two men, as the rector approached,
were discussing some cases of commo