ken advantage of her absence.
But, what's the odds? If she takes me there'll be an end of it. If
she don't, they can't eat me."

"The only thing is whether they'll let you in."

"I'll try at any rate," said Tom, "and you shall go over with me.
You won't mind trotting about the grounds while I'm carrying on the
war inside? I'll take the two bays, and Dick Farren behind, and I
don't think there's a prettier got-up trap in the county. We'll go
to-morrow."

And on the morrow they did start, having heard on that very morning
of the arrest of Phineas Finn. "By George, don't it feel odd," said
Tom just as they started,--"a fellow that we used to know down here,
having him out hunting and all that, and now he's--a murderer! Isn't
it a coincidence?"

"It startles one," said Ned.

"That's what I mean. It's such a strange thing that it should be the
man we know ourselves. These things always are happening to me. Do
you remember when poor Fred Fellows got his bad fall and died the
next year? You weren't here then."

"I've heard you speak of it."

"I was in the very same field, and should have been the man to pick
him up, only the hounds had just turned to the left. It's very odd
that these coincidences always are happening to some men and never do
happen to others. It makes one feel that he's marked out, you know."

"I hope you'll be marked out by victory to-day."

"Well;--yes. That's more important just now than Mr. Bonteen's
murder. Do you know, I wish you'd drive. These horses are pulling,
and I don't want to be all in a flurry when I get to Harrington."
Now it was a fact very well known to all concerned with Spoon Hall,
that there was nothing as to which the Squire was so jealous as
the driving of his own horses. He would never trust the reins to a
friend, and even Ned had hardly ever been allowed the honour of the
whip when sitting with his cousin. "I'm apt to get red in the face
when I'm overheated," said Tom as he made himself comfortable and
easy in the left hand seat.

There were not many more words spoken during the journey. The lover
was probably justified in feeling some trepidation. He had been quite
correct in suggesting that the matter between him and Miss Palliser
bore no resemblance at all to that old affair between his cousin Ned
and Polly Maxwell. There had been as little trepidation as money in
that case,--simply love and kisses, parting, despair, and a broken
heart. Here things were more august. T