blackberry bushes, ferns, and dog-roses,
hazel and sloe trees, all done away with by his order. No, he could never
bring himself to sell Wyncomb. Nor was the purchase of an annuity a
transaction which he was inclined to accomplish. It was a pleasing notion
certainly, that idea of concentrating all his hoarded money upon the
remaining years of his life--retiring from the toils of agriculture, and
giving himself up for the rest of his days to an existence of luxurious
idleness. But, on the other hand, it would be a bitter thing to surrender
his fondly-loved money for the poor return of an income, to deprive
himself of all opportunity of speculating and increasing his store.

So the annuity scheme lay dormant in his brain, as it were, for the time
being. It was something to have in reserve, and to carry out any day that
his wife gave him fair cause to doubt her fidelity.

In the mean time he went on living his lonely sulky kind of life,
drinking a great deal more than was good for him in his own churlish
manner, and laughing to scorn any attempt at remonstrance from his wife
or Mrs. Tadman. Some few times Ellen had endeavoured to awaken him to the
evil consequences that must needs ensue from his intemperate habits,
feeling that it would be a sin on her part to suffer him to go on without
some effort to check him; but her gently-spoken warnings had been worse
than useless.

CHAPTER XLIII.

MR. WHITELAW MAKES AN END OF THE MYSTERY.

Mrs. Whitelaw had been married about two months. It was bright May
weather, bright but not yet warm; and whatever prettiness Wyncomb Farm
was capable of assuming had been put on with the fresh spring green of
the fields and the young leaves of the poplars. There were even a few
hardy flowers in the vegetable-garden behind the house, humble perennials
planted by dead and gone Whitelaws, which had bloomed year after year in
spite of Stephen's utilitarian principles. It was a market-day, the
household work was finished, and Ellen was sitting with Mrs. Tadman in
the parlour, where those two spent so many weary hours of their lives,
the tedium whereof was relieved only by woman's homely resource,
needlework. Even if Mrs. Whitelaw had been fond of reading, and she only
cared moderately for that form of occupation, she could hardly have found
intellectual diversion of that kind at Wyncomb, where a family Bible, a
few volumes of the _Annual Register_, which had belonged to some
half-dozen di