eyes of the squire.

At another time Robert was walking, far from home, along a bit of level
road. The pools in the ruts were just filmed with frost, and gleamed
under the sunset; the winter dusk was clear and chill. A horseman turned
into the road from a side lane. It was the squire again, alone. The
sharp sound of the approaching hoofs stirred Robert's pulse, and as they
passed each other the rector raised his hat. He thought his greeting was
acknowledged, but could not be quite sure. From the shelter of a group
of trees he stood a moment and looked after the retreating figure. It
and the horse showed dark against a wide sky barred by stormy reds and
purples. The wind whistled through the withered oaks; the long road with
its lines of glimmering pools seemed to stretch endlessly into the
sunset; and with every minute the night strode on. Age and loneliness
could have found no fitter setting. A shiver ran through Elsmere as he
stepped forward.

Undoubtedly the quarrel, helped by his work, and the perpetual presence
of that beautiful house commanding the whole country round it from its
plateau above the river, kept Elsmere specially in mind of the squire.
As before their first meeting, and in spite of it, he became more and
more imaginatively preoccupied with him. One of the signs of it was a
strong desire to read the squire's two famous books: one, _The Idols of
the Market-place_, an attack on English beliefs; the other, _Essays on
English Culture_, an attack on English ideals of education. He had never
come across them as it happened, and perhaps Newcome's denunciation had
some effect in inducing him for a time to refrain from reading them. But
in December he ordered them and waited their coming with impatience. He
said nothing of the order to Catherine; somehow there were by now two or
three portions of his work, two or three branches of his thought, which
had fallen out of their common discussion. After all she was not
literary, and with all their oneness of soul there could not be an
_identity_ of interests or pursuits.

The books arrived in the morning. (Oh, how dismally well, with what a
tightening of the heart, did Robert always remember that day in after
years!) He was much too busy to look at them, and went off to a meeting.
In the evening, coming home late from his night-school, he found
Catherine tired, sent her to bed, and went himself into his study to
put together some notes for a cottage lecture he w