rken and desolate those it was permitted to
approach. Starve or rob! perish miserably! And if I pour not on your
head my parting curse, it is only because I know that man has no right
to curse; and casting you back on your own evil self is the sole revenge
which my belief in Heaven permits me."

Thus saying, Darrell strode on-swiftly, but not as one who flies. Jasper
made three long bounds, and was almost at his side, when he was startled
by the explosion of a gun. A pheasant fell dead on the road, and
Darrell's gamekeeper, gun in hand, came through a gap in the hedge
opposite the park-pales, and, seeing his master close before him,
approached to apologise for the suddenness of the shot.

Whatever Losely's intention in hastening after Darrell, he had no option
now but to relinquish it, and drop back. The village itself was not many
hundred yards distant; and, after all, what good in violence, except the
gratified rage of the moment? Violence would not give to Jasper Losely
the income that had just been within his grasp, and had so unexpectedly
eluded it. He remained, therefore, in the lane, standing still, and
seeing Darrell turn quietly into his park through another gate close to
the Manor-house. The gamekeeper, meanwhile, picked up his bird, reloaded
his gun, and eyed Jasper suspiciously askant. The baffled gladiator at
length turned and walked slowly back to the town he had left. It
was late in the afternoon when he once more gained his corner in the
coffee-room of his commercial inn; and, to his annoyance, the room was
crowded--it was market-day. Farmers, their business over, came in and
out in quick succession; those who did not dine at the ordinaries
taking their hasty snack, or stirrup-cup, while their horses were being
saddled; others to look at the newspaper, or exchange a word on the
state of markets and the nation. Jasper, wearied and sullen, had to
wait for the refreshments he ordered, and meanwhile fell into a sort of
half-doze, as was not now unusual in him in the intervals between food
and mischief. From this creeping torpor he was suddenly roused by the
sound of Darrell's name. Three farmers standing close beside him, their
backs to the fire, were tenants to Darrell--two of them on the lands
that Darrell had purchased in the years of his territorial ambition; the
third resided in the hamlet of Fawley, and rented the larger portion of
the comparatively barren acres to which the old patrimonial estate was