ll of
force, of harsh epigram, of grim anecdote than ever. Robert sat on the
edge of the table laughing over his stories of French Orientalists,
or Roman cardinals or modern Greek professors, enjoying the impartial
sarcasm which one of the greatest of savants was always ready to pour
out upon his brethren of the craft.

The Squire, however, was never genial for a moment during the interview.
He did not mention his book nor Elsmere's letter. But Elsmere suspected
in him a good deal of suppressed irritability; and, as after a while he
abruptly ceased to talk, the visit grew difficult.

The Rector walked home feeling restless and depressed. The mind had
begun to work again. It was only by a great effort that he could turn
his thoughts from the Squire, and all that the Squire had meant to him
during the past year, and so woo back to himself 'the shy bird Peace.'

Mr. Wendover watched the door close behind him, and then went back to
his work with a gesture of impatience.

'Once a priest, always a priest. What a fool I was to forget it! You
think you make an impression on the mystic, and at the bottom there is
always something which defies you and common-sense. "Two and two do not,
and shall not, make four,"' he said to himself, in a mincing voice
of angry sarcasm. '"It would give me too much pain that they should."
'Well, and so I suppose what might have been a rational friendship
will go by the board like everything else. What can make the man
shilly-shally in this way! He is convinced already, as he knows--those
later letters were conclusive! His living, perhaps, and hid work! Not
for the money's sake, there never was a more incredibly disinterested
person born. But his work? Well, who is to hinder his work? Will he be
the first parson in the Church of England who looks after the poor and
holds his tongue? If you can't speak your mind, it is something at
any rate to possess one--nine-tenths of the clergy being without the
appendage. But Elsmere--pshaw! he will go muddling on to the end of the
chapter!'

The Squire, indeed, was like a hunter whose prey escapes him at the
very moment of capture, and there grew on him a mocking, aggressive mood
which Elsmere often found hard to bear.

One natural symptom of it was his renewed churlishness as to all local
matters. Elsmere one afternoon spent an hour in trying to persuade him
to open the new Institute.

'What on earth do you want me for?' inquired Mr. Wendover, standing