headache
instead of making settlements,--these indeed were drawbacks; but the
pleasure was so sweet that even such drawbacks as these could hardly
sully his bliss. "If you knew what your letter was to me!" she said,
as she leaned against his shoulder. His father and his uncle and all
the Marrables on the earth might do their worst, they could not rob
the present hour of its joy.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

THE SQUIRE IS VERY OBSTINATE.

Mr. Gilmore left his own home on a Thursday afternoon, and on the
Monday when the Vicar again visited the Privets nothing had been
heard of him. Money had been left with the bailiff for the Saturday
wages of the men working about the place, but no provision for
anything had been made beyond that. The Sunday had been wet from
morning to night, and nothing could possibly be more disconsolate
than the aspect of things round the house, or more disreputable if
they were to be left in their present condition. The barrows, and the
planks, and the pickaxes had been taken away, which things, though
they are not in themselves beautiful, are safeguards against the
ill-effects of ugliness, as they inform the eyes why it is that such
disorder lies around. There was the disorder at the Privets now
without any such instruction to the eye. Pits were full of muddy
water, and half-formed paths had become the beds of stagnant pools.
The Vicar then went into the house, and though there was still a
workman and a boy who were listlessly pulling about some rolls of
paper, there were ample signs that misfortune had come and that
neglect was the consequence. "And all this," said Fenwick to himself,
"because the man cannot get the idea of a certain woman out of his
head!" Then he thought of himself and his own character, and asked
himself whether, in any position of life, he could have been thus
overruled to misery by circumstances altogether outside himself.
Misfortunes might come which would be very heavy; his wife or
children might die; or he might become a pauper; or subject to some
crushing disease. But Gilmore's trouble had not fallen upon him from
the hands of Providence. He had set his heart upon the gaining of a
thing, and was now absolutely broken-hearted because he could not
have it. And the thing was a woman. Fenwick admitted to himself that
the thing itself was the most worthy for which a man can struggle;
but would not admit that even in his search for that a man should
allow his heart to give w