owbridge will condescend to say that he will drop
all animosity to me, I will forgive him the injuries he has done me.
But I cannot admit myself to have been wrong."

"I never knew any man who would," said Lord St. George.

"If the Marquis will put out his hand to me, I will accept it," said
the Vicar.

"Allow me to do so on his behalf," said the son.

And thus the quarrel was presumed to be healed. Lord St. George went
to the inn for his horse, and the Vicar, as he walked across to the
vicarage, felt that he had been--done. This young lord had been very
clever,--and had treated the quarrel as though on even terms, as if
the offences on each side had been equal. And yet the Vicar knew very
well that he had been right,--right without a single slip,--right
from the beginning to the end. "He has been clever," he said to
himself, "and he shall have the advantage of his cleverness." Then he
resolved that as far as he was concerned the quarrel should in truth
be over.

CHAPTER LXI.

MARY LOWTHER'S TREACHERY.

While the Vicar was listening to the eloquence of Mr. Puddleham in
the chapel, and was being cozened out of his just indignation by Lord
St. George, a terrible scene was going on in the drawing-room of
the vicarage. Mary Lowther, as the reader knows, had declared that
she would wear mourning for her distant cousin, and had declined to
appear at lunch before Lord St. George. Mrs. Fenwick, putting these
things together, knew that much was the matter, but she did not know
how much. She did not as yet anticipate the terrible state of things
which was to be made known to her that afternoon.

Mary was quite aware that the thing must be settled. In the first
place she must answer Captain Marrable's letter. And then it was her
bounden duty to let Mr. Gilmore know her mind as soon as she knew it
herself. It might be easy enough for her to write to Walter Marrable.
That which she had to say to him would be pleasant enough in the
saying. But that could not be said till the other thing should be
unsaid. And how was that unsaying to be accomplished? Nothing could
be done without the aid of Mrs. Fenwick; and now she was afraid of
Mrs. Fenwick,--as the guilty are always afraid of those who will have
to judge their guilt. While the children were at dinner, and while
the lord was sitting at lunch, she remained up in her own room. From
her window she could see the two men walking across the vicarage
grounds towards the