and then only for an hour. Mrs. Toplady took her
leave before mid-day. Miss Bride showed herself only at breakfast and
luncheon, when she was friendly, indeed, but not much disposed for
talk. Dyce had anticipated a growth of intimacy with Constance; he was
prepared for long, confidential gossip in the library or the garden;
but his friend briefly excused herself. She had a lot of reading and
extracting to do.

"You have told me very little about yourself," he remarked, when she
rose to withdraw after luncheon.

"What's there to tell?"

"It would interest me to know more of your own thoughts--apart from the
work you are engaged in."

"Oh, those are strictly for home consumption," said Constance with a
smile; and went her way.

So Dyce paced the garden by himself, or read newspapers and reviews, or
lolled indolently in super-comfortable chairs. He had promised to write
to Mrs. Woolstan, and in the morning said to himself that he would do
so in the afternoon; but he disliked letter-writing, shrank at all
times, indeed, from use of the pen, and ultimately the duty was
postponed till to-morrow. His exertions of the evening before had left
a sense of fatigue; it was enough to savour the recollection of
triumph. He mused a little, from time to time, on Constance, whose
behaviour slightly piqued his curiosity. That she was much occupied
with the thought of him, he never doubted, but he could not feel quite
sure of the colour of her reflections--a vexatious incertitude. He
lazily resolved to bring her to clearer avowal before quitting Rivenoak.

At evening, the coachman drove him to Hollingford, where he alighted at
Mr. Breakspeare's newspaper office. The editor received him in a large,
ill-kept, barely furnished room, the floor littered with journals.

"How will that do, Mr. Lashmar?" was his greeting, as he held out a
printed slip.

Dyce perused a leading article, which, without naming him, contained a
very flattering sketch of his intellectual personality. So, at least,
he understood the article, ostensibly a summing of the qualifications
which should be possessed by an ideal Liberal candidate. Large culture,
a philosophical grasp of the world's history, a scientific conception
of human life; again, thorough familiarity with the questions of the
day, a mind no less acute in the judgment of detail than broad in its
vision of principles: moreover, genuine sympathy with the aspirations
of the average man, yet no bias