ing up the bureau again, he walked to the window and
gazed out as impassibly as he had done at the beginning of the
interview, while Raffles took a small allowance from the flask, screwed
it up, and deposited it in his side-pocket, with provoking slowness,
making a grimace at his stepson's back.

"Farewell, Josh--and if forever!" said Raffles, turning back his head
as he opened the door.

Rigg saw him leave the grounds and enter the lane. The gray day had
turned to a light drizzling rain, which freshened the hedgerows and the
grassy borders of the by-roads, and hastened the laborers who were
loading the last shocks of corn. Raffles, walking with the uneasy gait
of a town loiterer obliged to do a bit of country journeying on foot,
looked as incongruous amid this moist rural quiet and industry as if he
had been a baboon escaped from a menagerie. But there were none to
stare at him except the long-weaned calves, and none to show dislike of
his appearance except the little water-rats which rustled away at his
approach.

He was fortunate enough when he got on to the highroad to be overtaken
by the stage-coach, which carried him to Brassing; and there he took
the new-made railway, observing to his fellow-passengers that he
considered it pretty well seasoned now it had done for Huskisson. Mr.
Raffles on most occasions kept up the sense of having been educated at
an academy, and being able, if he chose, to pass well everywhere;
indeed, there was not one of his fellow-men whom he did not feel
himself in a position to ridicule and torment, confident of the
entertainment which he thus gave to all the rest of the company.

He played this part now with as much spirit as if his journey had been
entirely successful, resorting at frequent intervals to his flask. The
paper with which he had wedged it was a letter signed Nicholas
Bulstrode, but Raffles was not likely to disturb it from its present
useful position.

CHAPTER XLII.

"How much, methinks, I could despise this man
Were I not bound in charity against it!
--SHAKESPEARE: Henry VIII.

One of the professional calls made by Lydgate soon after his return
from his wedding-journey was to Lowick Manor, in consequence of a
letter which had requested him to fix a time for his visit.

Mr. Casaubon had never put any question concerning the nature of his
illness to Lydgate, nor had he even to Dorothea betrayed any anxiety as
to how far