elf of what he had done was
more correct than that formed by Bernard Dale. He had regarded the
act as venial as long as it was still to do,--while it was still
within his power to leave it undone; but from the moment of its
accomplishment it had forced itself upon his own view in its proper
light. He knew that he had been a scoundrel, and he knew that other
men would so think of him. His friend Fowler Pratt, who had the
reputation of looking at women simply as toys, had so regarded him.
Instead of boasting of what he had done, he was as afraid of alluding
to any matter connected with his marriage as a man is of talking of
the articles which he has stolen. He had already felt that men at his
club looked askance at him; and, though he was no coward as regarded
his own skin and bones, he had an undefined fear lest some day he
might encounter Bernard Dale purposely armed with a stick. The squire
and his nephew were wrong in supposing that Crosbie was unpunished.

And as the winter came on he felt that he was closely watched by the
noble family of de Courcy. Some of that noble family he had already
learned to hate cordially. The Honourable John came up to town in
November, and persecuted him vilely;--insisted on having dinners
given to him at Sebright's, of smoking throughout the whole afternoon
in his future brother-in-law's rooms, and on borrowing his future
brother-in-law's possessions; till at last Crosbie determined that it
would be wise to quarrel with the Honourable John,--and he quarrelled
with him accordingly, turning him out of his rooms, and telling him
in so many words that he would have no more to do with him.

"You'll have to do it, as I did," Mortimer Gazebee had said to him;
"I didn't like it because of the family, but Lady Amelia told me that
it must be so." Whereupon Crosbie took the advice of Mortimer
Gazebee.

But the hospitality of the Gazebees was perhaps more distressing to
him than even the importunities of the Honourable John. It seemed
as though his future sister-in-law was determined not to leave him
alone. Mortimer was sent to fetch him up for the Sunday afternoons,
and he found that he was constrained to go to the villa in St. John's
Wood, even in opposition to his own most strenuous will. He could not
quite analyse the circumstances of his own position, but he felt as
though he were a cock with his spurs cut off,--as a dog with his
teeth drawn. He found himself becoming humble and meek. He ha