entry about here--I
suppose you will have some of them--regard me as an old reprobate, and
the poor people, I imagine, as a kind of ogre. To me it doesn't matter a
twopenny damn--I apologise; it was the Duke of Wellington's favourite
standard of value--but I can't see what good it can do either you or the
village, under the circumstances, that I should stand on my head for the
popular edification.'

Elsmere, however, merely stood his ground, arguing and bantering, till
the squire grudgingly gave way. This time, after he departed, Mr.
Wendover, instead of going to his work, still stood gloomily ruminating
in front of the fire. His frowning eyes wandered round the great room
before him. For the first time he was conscious that now, as soon as the
charm of Elsmere's presence was withdrawn, his working hours were doubly
solitary; that his loneliness weighed upon him more; and that it
mattered to him appreciably whether that young man went or stayed. The
stirring of a new sensation, however,--unparalleled since the brief days
when even Roger Wendover had his friends and his attractions like other
men,--was soon lost in renewed chafing at Elsmere's absurdities. The
squire had been at first perfectly content--so he told himself--to limit
the field of their intercourse, and would have been content to go on
doing so. But Elsmere himself had invited freedom of speech between
them.

'I would have given him my best,' Mr. Wendover reflected impatiently. 'I
could have handed on to him all I shall never use, and he might use,
admirably. And now we might as well be on the terms we were to begin
with for all the good I get out of him, or he out of me. Clearly nothing
but cowardice! He cannot face the intellectual change, and he must, I
suppose, dread lest it should affect his work. Good God, what nonsense!
As if any one inquired what an English parson believed nowadays, so long
as he performs all the usual antics decently!'

And, meanwhile, it never occurred to the squire that Elsmere had a wife,
and a pious one. Catherine had been dropped out of his calculation as to
Elsmere's future, at a very early stage.

* * * * *

The following afternoon Robert, coming home from a round, found
Catherine out, and a note awaiting him from the Hall.

'Can you and Mrs. Elsmere come in to tea?' wrote the squire. 'Madame de
Netteville is here, and one or two others.'

Robert grumbled a good deal, looked for Catheri