arrival. It had
become an acknowledged fact now in the county that Sam Brattle had
had nothing to do with the murder of Farmer Trumbull, and that his
acquaintance with the murderers had sprung from his desire to see his
unfortunate sister settled in marriage with a man whom he at the time
did not know to be disreputable. There had therefore been a reaction
in favour of Sam Brattle, whom the county now began to regard as
something of a hero. The Marquis, understanding all that, had come to
be aware that he had wronged the Vicar in that matter of the murder.
And then, though he had been told upon very good authority,--no less
than that of his daughters, who had been so informed by the sisters
of a most exemplary neighbouring curate,--that Mr. Fenwick was a man
who believed "just next to nothing," and would just as soon associate
with a downright Pagan like old Brattle, as with any professing
Christian,--still there was the fact of the Bishop's good opinion;
and, though the Marquis was a self-willed man, to him a bishop was
always a bishop. It was also clear to him that he had been misled in
those charges which he had made against the Vicar in that matter of
poor Carry Brattle's residence at Salisbury. Something of the truth
of the girl's history had come to the ears of the Marquis, and he
had been made to believe that he had been wrong. Then there was the
affair of the chapel, in which, under his son's advice, he was at
this moment expending L700 in rectifying the mistake which he had
made. In giving the Marquis his due we must acknowledge that he cared
but little about the money. Marquises, though they may have large
properties, are not always in possession of any number of loose
hundreds which they can throw away without feeling the loss. Nor was
the Marquis of Trowbridge so circumstanced now. But that trouble did
not gall him nearly so severely as the necessity which was on him to
rectify an error made by himself. He had done a foolish thing. Under
no circumstances should the chapel have been built on that spot. He
knew it now, and he knew that he must apologise. Noblesse oblige.
The old lord was very stupid, very wrong-headed, and sometimes very
arrogant; but he would not do a wrong if he knew it, and nothing on
earth would make him tell a wilful lie. The epithet indeed might have
been omitted; for a lie is not a lie unless it be wilful.

Lord Trowbridge passed the hours of this Tuesday morning under
the frightful s