at any rate, to some extent. Night and day he longed that
this should come about, and it was the reason why the young Lord
Mounteroy was visiting Hawk's Hall.

Mounteroy had met Isobel at a dinner-party in London the other day and
admired her. He had told an old lady--a kind of society tout--who had
repeated it to Sir John, that he wished to get married, and that Isobel
Blake was the sort of girl he would like to marry. He was a clever man,
also ambitious, one who had hopes of some day ruling the country, but
to do this he needed behind him great and assured fortune in addition
to his ancient but somewhat impoverished rank. In short, she suited his
book, and he suited that of Sir John. Now, the thing to do was to bring
it about that he should also suit Isobel's book. And just at the
critical moment this accursed accident had happened. Oh! it was too
much.

No wonder that Sir John was filled with righteous wrath and a stern
determination to "make things hot" for the cause of the "accident" as,
led to the attack by the active but dripping Mr. Knight whom he
designated in his heart as that "little cur of a parson," much as an
overfed and bloated bloodhound might be by some black and vicious
mongrel, he tramped heavily towards the church. Indeed they made a
queer contrast, this small, active but fierce-faced man in his sombre,
shiny garments and dingy white tie, and the huge, ample-paunched
baronet with his red, flat face, heavy lips and projecting but
intelligent eyes, clothed in a new suit, wearing an enormous black
pearl in his necktie and a diamond ring on his finger; the very ideal
of Mammon in every detail of his person and of his carefully advertised
opulence.

Isobel, whose humour had its sardonic side, and who was the first to
catch sight of them when they reached the church, Mr. Knight tripping
ahead, and Sir John hot with the exercise in the close, moist air,
lumbering after him with his mouth open, compared them in her mind to a
fierce little pilot fish conducting an overfed shark to some helpless
prey which it had discovered battling with the waters of circumstance;
that after all, was only another version of the mongrel and the
bloodhound. Also she compared them to other things, even less
complimentary.

Yet none of these, perhaps, was really adequate, either to the evil
intentions or the repellent appearance of this pair as they advanced
upon their wicked mission of jealousy and hate.

CHAPTER XVI