r self-abnegation; but
he had continued to buoy himself up with the idea that all would come
right when she should be his wife. Now she had told him that she
would never willingly speak to him again,--and he believed her.

He went up to his house, and into his bedroom, and then he sat
thinking of it all. And as he thought he heard the voices and the
tools of the men at their work; and knew that things were being
done which, for him, would never be of avail. He remained there
for a couple of hours without moving. Then he got up and gave the
housekeeper instructions to pack up his portmanteau, and the groom
orders to bring his gig to the door. "He was going away," he said,
and his letters were to be addressed to his club in London. That
afternoon he drove himself into Salisbury that he might catch the
evening express train up, and that night he slept at a hotel in
London.

CHAPTER LXV.

MARY LOWTHER LEAVES BULLHAMPTON.

[Illustration]

It was considerably past one o'clock, and the children's dinner was
upon the table in the dining parlour before anyone in the vicarage
had seen Mary Lowther since the departure of the Squire. When she
left Mr. Gilmore, she had gone to her own room, and no one had
disturbed her. As the children were being seated, Fenwick returned,
and his wife put into his hand the note which Gilmore had left for
her.

"What passed between them?" he asked in a whisper.

His wife shook her head. "I have not seen her," she said, "but he
talks of speaking plainly, and I suppose it was bitter enough."

"He can be very bitter if he's driven hard," said the Vicar; "and he
has been driven very hard," he added, after a while.

As soon as the children had eaten their dinner, Mrs. Fenwick went up
to Mary's room with the Squire's note in her hand. She knocked, and
was at once admitted, and she found Mary sitting at her writing-desk.

"Will you not come to lunch, Mary?"

"Yes,--if I ought. I suppose I might not have a cup of tea brought up
here?"

"You shall have whatever you like,--here or anywhere else, as far as
the vicarage goes. What did he say to you this morning?"

"It is of no use that I should tell you, Janet."

"You did not yield to him, then?"

"Certainly, I did not. Certainly I never shall yield to him. Dear
Janet, pray take that as a certainty. Let me make you sure at any
rate of that. He must be sure of it himself."

"Here is his note to me, written, I suppose, after you left