secret way, but there was none, only the highroad, or the
path across the village green, and through the churchyard to his
paddocks. An old cottager was standing at the turnstile, and the Squire
made for him with his head down, as a bull makes for a fence. He had
meant to pass in silence, but between him and this old broken husbandman
there was a bond forged by the ages. Had it meant death, Mr. Pendyce
could not have passed one whose fathers had toiled for his fathers, eaten
his fathers' bread, died with his fathers, without a word and a movement
of his hand.

"Evenin', Squire; nice evenin'. Faine weather fur th' hay!"

The voice was warped and wavery.

'This is my Squire,' it seemed to say, 'whatever ther' be agin him!'

Mr. Pendyce's hand went up to his hat.

"Evenin', Hermon. Aye, fine weather for the hay! Mrs. Pendyce has gone
up to London. We young bachelors, ha!"

He passed on.

Not until he had gone some way did he perceive why he had made that
announcement. It was simply because he must tell everyone, everyone;
then no one could be astonished.

He hurried on to the house to dress in time for dinner, and show all that
nothing was amiss. Seven courses would have been served him had the sky
fallen; but he ate little, and drank more claret than was his wont.
After dinner he sat in his study with the windows open, and in the
mingled day and lamp light read his wife's letter over again. As it was
with the spaniel John, so with his master--a new idea penetrated but
slowly into his long and narrow head.

She was cracked about George; she did not know what she was doing; would
soon come to her senses. It was not for him to take any steps. What
steps, indeed, could he take without confessing that Horace Pendyce had
gone too far, that Horace Pendyce was in the wrong? That had never been
his habit, and he could not alter now. If she and George chose to be
stubborn, they must take the consequences, and fend for themselves.

In the silence and the lamplight, growing mellower each minute under the
green silk shade, he sat confusedly thinking of the past. And in that
dumb reverie, as though of fixed malice, there came to him no memories
that were not pleasant, no images that were not fair. He tried to think
of her unkindly, he tried to paint her black; but with the perversity
born into the world when he was born, to die when he was dead, she came
to him softly, like the ghost of gentleness, to haunt hi