ed system, with everything going by rule
and measure, and bound to believe just as you're told? It'll kill you,
sir--that's what will be the end of it. If you are in your grave within
the year, it will be no wonder to me."

"Amen!" said Gerald, softly. "If that is to be all, we will not
quarrel with the result;" and he got up and went to the window, as if
to look for his cedar, which was not there. Perhaps the absence of his
silent referee gave him a kind of comfort, though at the same time it
disappointed him in some fantastical way, for he turned with a curious
look of relief and vexation to his brother. "We need not be always
thinking of it, even if this were to be the end," he said. "Come down
the avenue with me, Frank, and let us talk of something else. The
girls will grumble, but they can have you later: come, I want to hear
about yourself."

Unfortunately the Squire got up when his sons did, which was by no means
their intention; but Mr Wentworth was vexed and restless, and was not
willing to let Gerald off so easily. If he were mad, at least he ought
to be made duly wretched in his madness, Mr Wentworth thought; and he
went out with them, and arrested the words on their lips. Somehow
everything seemed to concur in hindering any appeal on the part of the
Curate. And Gerald, like most imaginative men, had a power of dismissing
his troubles after they had taken their will of him. It was he who took
the conversation on himself when they went out of doors. Finding Frank
slow in his report, Gerald went into all the country news for the
instruction of his brother. He had been down to the very depths during
the two previous days, and now he had come aloft again; for a man cannot
be miserable every moment of his life, however heavy his burden may be.
The "girls," whose anxieties had been much stimulated by the renewed
conference held with closed doors in the library, stood watching them
from one of the drawing-room windows. The boldest of the two had,
indeed, got her hat to follow them, not comprehending why Frank should
be monopolised for days together by anybody but herself, his favourite
sister; but something in the aspect of the three men, when they first
appeared under the lime-trees, had awed even the lively Letty out of her
usual courage. "But Gerald is talking and laughing just as usual," she
said, as she stood at the window dangling her hat in her hand--"more
than usual, for he has been very glum all this sprin