e dismissal of Henslowe indeed represented the price which Mr.
Wendover had been so far willing to pay for Elsmere's society. Some
_quid pro quo_ there must be--that he was prepared to admit--considering
their relative positions as Squire and parson. But, as Robert shrewdly
suspected, not one of his wiles so far had imposed on the master of
Murewell. He had his own sarcastic smiles over them, and over Elsmere's
pastoral _naivete_ in general. The evidences of the young Rector's power
and popularity were, however, on the whole, pleasant to Mr. Wendover. If
Elsmere had his will with all the rest of the world, Mr. Wendover knew
perfectly well who it was that at the present moment had his will with
Elsmere. He had found a great piquancy in this shaping of a mind more
intellectually eager and pliant than any he had yet come across
among younger men; perpetual food too, for his sense of irony, in the
intellectual contradictions, wherein Elsmere's developing ideas and
information were now, according to the Squire, involving him at every
turn.

'His religious foundations are gone already, if he did but know it,'
Mr. Wendover grimly remarked to himself one day about this time, 'but
he will take so long finding it out that the results are not worth
speculating on.'

Cynically assured, therefore, at bottom, of his own power with this
ebullient nature, the Squire was quite prepared to make external
concessions, or, as we have said, to pay his price. It annoyed him that
when Elsmere would press for allotment land, or a new institute, or a
better supply of water for the village, it was not open to him merely
to give _carte blanche_, and refer his petitioner to Henslowe. Robert's
opinion of Henslowe, and Henslowe's now more cautious but still
incessant hostility to the Rector, were patent at last even to the
Squire. The situation was worrying and wasted time. It must be changed.

So one morning he met Elsmere with a bundle of letters in his hand,
calmly informed him that Henslowe had been sent about his business, and
that it would be a kindness if Mr. Elsmere would do him the favor of
looking through some applications for the vacant post just received.

Elsmere, much taken by surprise, felt at first as it was natural for an
over-sensitive, over-scrupulous man to feel. His enemy, had been given
into his hand, and instead of victory he could only realize that he had
brought a man to ruin.

'He has a wife and children,' he said quick