ou remember us both very kindly to Mrs. Darcy?'

Commonplace words, but words that made an epoch in the life of both. In
another minute the squire, on horseback, was trotting along the side
road leading to the Hall, and Robert was speeding home to Catherine as
fast as his long legs could carry him.

She was waiting for him on the steps, shading her eyes against the
unwonted sun. He kissed her with the spirits of a boy and told her all
his news.

Catherine listened bewildered, not knowing what to say or how all at
once to forgive, to join Robert in forgetting. But that strange
spiritual glow about him was not to be withstood. She threw her arms
about him at last with a half sob,--

'Oh, Robert--yes! Dear Robert--thank God!'

'Never think any more,' he said at last, leading her in from the little
hall, 'of what has been, only of what shall be! Oh, Catherine, give me
some tea; and never did I see anything so tempting as that armchair.'

He sank down into it, and when she put his breakfast beside him she saw
with a start that he was fast asleep. The wife stood and watched him,
the signs of fatigue round eyes and mouth, the placid expression, and
her face was soft with tenderness and joy. 'Of course--of course, even
that hard man must love him. Who could help it? My Robert!'

And so now in this disguise, now in that, the supreme hour of
Catherine's life stole on and on towards her.

CHAPTER XXII

As may be imagined, the _Churton Advertiser_ did not find its way to
Murewell. It was certainly no pressure of social disapproval that made
the squire go down to Mile End in that winter's dawn. The county might
talk, or the local press might harangue, till Doomsday, and Mr. Wendover
would either know nothing or care less.

Still his interview with Meyrick in the park after his return from a
week in town, whither he had gone to see some old Berlin friends, had
been a shock to him. A man may play the intelligent recluse, may refuse
to fit his life to his neighbours' notions as much as you please, and
still find death, especially death for which he has some responsibility,
as disturbing a fact as the rest of us.

He went home in much irritable discomfort. It seemed to him probably
that fortune need not have been so eager to put him in the wrong. To
relieve his mind he sent for Henslowe, and in an interview, the memory
of which sent a shiver through the agent to the end of his days, he let
it be seen that though it