the beginning. But what matter? Here they were in the dark,
side by side, friends now, friends always. Catherine should not spoil
their last walk together. She felt a passionate trust that _he_ would
not allow it.

'Wifie!' exclaimed Robert, drawing her a little apart, 'do you know it
has just occurred to me that, as I was going through the park this
afternoon by the lower footpath, I crossed Henslowe coming away from the
house. Of course this is what has happened! _He_ has told his story
first. No doubt just before I met him he had been giving the squire a
full and particular account--_a la_ Henslowe--of my proceedings since I
came. Henslowe lays it on thick--paints with a will. The squire
receives me afterwards as the meddlesome pragmatical priest he
understands me to be; puts his foot down to begin with; and, _hinc illae
lacrymae_. It's as clear as daylight! I thought that man had an odd twist
of the lip as he passed me.'

'Then a disagreeable evening will be the worst of it,' said Catherine
proudly. 'I imagine, Robert, you can defend yourself against that bad
man?'

'He has got the start; he has no scruples; and it remains to be seen
whether the squire has a heart to appeal to,' replied the young rector
with sore reflectiveness. 'Oh, Catherine, have you ever thought, wifie,
what a business it will be for us if I _can't_ make friends with that
man? Here we are at his gates--all our people in his power; the
_comfort_, at any rate, of our social life depending on him. And what a
strange, unmanageable, inexplicable being!'

Elsmere sighed aloud. Like all quick imaginative natures he was easily
depressed, and the squire's sombre figure had for the moment darkened
his whole horizon. Catherine laid her cheek against his arm in the
darkness, consoling, remonstrating, every other thought lost in her
sympathy with Robert's worries. Langham and Rose slipped out of her
head; Elsmere's step had quickened, as it always did when he was
excited, and she kept up without thinking.

When Langham found the others had shot ahead in the darkness, and he and
his neighbour were _tete-a-tete_, despair seized him. But for once he
showed a sort of dreary presence of mind. Suddenly, while the girl
beside him was floating in a golden dream of feeling, he plunged with a
stiff deliberation born of his inner conflict into a discussion of the
German system of musical training. Rose, startled, made some vague and
flippant reply. Langham pursue