t kiss her.

"You think only of me," said he, rather sadly. "It is a sorry victory,
too dearly bought."

Then she began to cry.

Sir Charles begged her not to cry; but still he did not kiss her, nor
conceal his mortification: he hardly spoke to her for several days.

She accepted her disgrace pensively and patiently. She thought it all
over, and felt her husband was right, and loved her like a man. But she
thought, also, that she was not very wrong to love him in her way.
Wrong or not, she felt she could not sit idle and see his enemy defeat
him.

The coolness died away by degrees, with so much humility on one side
and so much love on both: but the subject was interdicted forever.

A week after the trial Lady Bassett wrote to Mrs. Marsh, under cover to
Mr. Oldfield, and told her how the trial had gone, and, with many
expressions of gratitude, invited her and her husband to Huntercombe
Hall. She told Sir Charles what she had done, and he wore a very
strange look. "Might I suggest that we have them alone?" said he dryly.

"By all means," said Lady Bassett. "I don't want to share my paragon
with anybody."

In due course a reply came; Mr. and Mrs. Marsh would avail themselves
some day of Lady Bassett's kindness: at present they were going abroad.
The letter was written by a man's hand.

About this time Oldfield sent Sir Charles Miss Somerset's deed,
canceled, and told him she had married a man of fortune, who was
devoted to her, and preferred to take her without any dowry.

Bassett and Wheeler went home, crestfallen, and dined together. They
discussed the two trials, and each blamed the other. They quarreled and
parted: and Wheeler sent in an enormous bill, extending over five
years. Eighty-five items began thus: "Attending you at your house for
several hours, on which occasion you asked my advice as to whether--"
etc.

Now as a great many of these attendances had been really to shoot game
and dine on rabbits at Bassett's expense, he thought it hard the
conversation should be charged and the rabbits not.

Disgusted with his defeat, and resolved to evade this bill, he
discharged his servant, and put a retired soldier into his house, armed
him with a blunderbuss, and ordered him to keep all doors closed, and
present the weapon aforesaid at all rate collectors, tax collectors,
debt collectors, and applicants for money to build churches or convert
the heathen; but not to _fire_ at anybody except his friend Wh