ssed and left him cold.

But Hugh's melancholy eyes, as they opened once more on this world and
met his unflinchingly, haunted him, and the sudden anger at his
interference. It was the intrenchment of his contempt that Lord Newhaven
missed.

A meaner nature would not have let him off so easily as Hugh had done.

"It _was_ an accident," he said to himself, unwillingly. "He need not
have admitted that, but I should have been on a gridiron if he had not.
In different circumstances that man and I might have been friends. And
if he had got into a scrape of this kind a little further afield I might
have helped to get him out of it. He feels it. He has aged during the
last two months. But as it is--Upon my word, if he were a boy I should
have had to let him off. It would have been too bloodthirsty. But he is
seven-and-twenty. He is old enough to know better. She made a fool of
him, of course. She made a greater one of me once, for I--married her."

Lord Newhaven reviewed with a dispassionate eye his courtship and
marriage.

"A wood anemone," he said to himself; "I likened her to a wood anemone.
Good Lord! And I was thirty years of age, while this poor devil is
twenty-seven."

Lord Newhaven stopped short with fixed eyes.

"I believe I should have to let him off," he said, half-aloud. "I
believe I would let him off if I was not as certain as I stand here that
he will never do it."

CHAPTER XXVIII

"The less wit a man has, the less he knows that he wants it."

Hester always took charge of the three elder children and Fraeulein of
the baby during the six-o'clock service, so that the nurse might go to
church. On this particular Sunday afternoon Hester and the children were
waiting in the little hall till the bell stopped, before which moment
they were forbidden to leave the house. Mr. and Mrs. Gresley had just
started for the church, Mr. Gresley looking worn and harassed, for since
luncheon he had received what he called "a perfectly unaccountable
letter" from one of his principal parishioners, a Dissenter, who had
been present at the morning service, and who Mr. Gresley had confidently
hoped might have been struck by the sermon. This hope had been
justified, but not in the manner Mr. Gresley had expected. Mr. Walsh
opined, in a large round hand, that as worms (twice under-dashed) did
not usually pay voluntary church and school rates he no longer felt
himself under an obligation to do so, etc. The letter wa