him, but had filled him
with a curious contempt for his own hastiness of judgment.

'History would be inexplicable after all without the honest fanatic,' he
said to himself on the way home. 'I suppose I had forgotten it. There
is nothing like a dread of being bored for blunting your psychological
instinct.'

In the course of the day he sent off a letter to the Rector intimating
in the very briefest, dryest way that the cottages should be rebuilt
on a different site as soon as possible, and enclosing a liberal
contribution toward the expenses incurred in fighting the epidemic. When
the letter was gone he drew his books toward him with a sound which was
partly disgust, partly relief. This annoying business had wretchedly
interrupted him, and his concessions left him mainly conscious of a
strong nervous distaste for the idea of any fresh interview with young
Elsmere. He had got his money and his apology; let him be content.

However, next morning after breakfast, Mr. Wendover once more saw his
study door open to admit the tall figure of the Rector. The note
and check had reached Robert late the night before, and, true to his
new-born determination to make the best of the Squire, he had caught
up his wideawake at the first opportunity and walked off to the Hall to
acknowledge the gift in person. The interview opened as awkwardly as it
was possible, and with their former conversation on the same spot fresh
in their minds both men spent a sufficiently difficult ten minutes. The
Squire was asking himself, indeed, impatiently, all the time, whether he
could possibly be forced in the future to put up with such an experience
again, and Robert found his host, if less sarcastic than before,
certainly as impenetrable as ever.

At last, however, the Mile End matter was exhausted, and then Robert, as
good luck would have it, turned his longing eyes on the Squire's
books, especially on the latest volumes of a magnificent German
_Weltgeschichte_ lying near his elbow, which he had coveted for months
without being able to conquer his conscience sufficiently to become the
possessor of it. He took it up with an exclamation of delight, and a
quiet critical remark that exactly hit the value and scope of the book.
The Squire's eyebrows went up, and the corners of his mouth slackened
visibly. Half an hour later the two men, to the amazement of Mrs. Darcy,
who was watching them from the drawing-room window, walked back to the
park gates tog