ned and looked round. There was Mr. Pedgift the
elder, rapidly overtaking him in the gig, just as Mr. Pedgift had
overtaken him once already, on that former occasion when he had listened
under the window at the great house, and when the lawyer had bluntly
charged him with feeling a curiosity about Miss Gwilt!

In an instant the inevitable association of ideas burst on his mind. The
opinion of Miss Gwilt, which he had heard the lawyer express to Allan at
parting, flashed back into his memory, side by side with Mr. Pedgift's
sarcastic approval of anything in the way of inquiry which his own
curiosity might attempt. "I may be even with her yet," he thought, "if
Mr. Pedgift will help me!--Stop, sir!" he called out, desperately, as
the gig came up with him. "If you please, sir, I want to speak to you."

Pedgift Senior slackened the pace of his fast-trotting mare, without
pulling up. "Come to the office in half an hour," he said; "I'm busy
now." Without waiting for an answer, without noticing Mr. Bashwood's
bow, he gave the mare the rein again, and was out of sight in another
minute.

Mr. Bashwood sat down once more in a shady place by the roadside. He
appeared to be incapable of feeling any slight but the one unpardonable
slight put upon him by Miss Gwilt. He not only declined to resent, he
even made the best of Mr. Pedgift's unceremonious treatment of him.
"Half an hour," he said, resignedly. "Time enough to compose myself;
and I want time. Very kind of Mr. Pedgift, though he mightn't have meant
it."

The sense of oppression in his head forced him once again to remove his
hat. He sat with it on his lap, deep in thought; his face bent low, and
the wavering fingers of one hand drumming absently on the crown of the
hat. If Mr. Pedgift the elder, seeing him as he sat now, could only have
looked a little way into the future, the monotonously drumming hand of
the deputy-steward might have been strong enough, feeble as it was, to
stop the lawyer by the roadside. It was the worn, weary, miserable old
hand of a worn, weary, miserable old man; but it was, for all that (to
use the language of Mr. Pedgift's own parting prediction to Allan), the
hand that was now destined to "let the light in on Miss Gwilt."

XIII. AN OLD MAN'S HEART.

Punctual to the moment, when the half hour's interval had expired, Mr.
Bashwood was announced at the office as waiting to see Mr. Pedgift by
special appointment.

The lawyer looked up from h