Walter, and pooh-poohed Fitzroy entirely, declaring him to be
five feet nothing, and therefore far below the military standard.

2. That Hope rented a cottage of Walter about three hundred yards
from the mine, and not upon the land that was leased to Bartley; that
there was a long detached building hard by, which Walter divided for
him, and turned into an office with a large window close to the
ground, and a workshop with a doorway and an aperture for a window,
but no window nor door.

3. That Hope got more and more uneasy about the L20,000, and observed to
Bartley that they must be robbing _somebody_ of it without the excuse
they once had. He, for his part, would work to disgorge his share.
Bartley replied that the money would have gone to a convent if he had not
saved it from so vile a fate. This said the astute Bartley because one
day Hope, who had his opinions on everything, inveighed against a
convent, and said no private prisons ought to exist in a free country. So
Bartley's ingenious statement stunned Hope for a minute, but did not
satisfy his conscience.

4. Hope went to London for a week, and Mary spent four days with her
husband at a hotel near the lake; but not the one held by Mrs. Easton's
sister. This change was by advice of Mrs. Easton. On this occasion Mary
played the woman. She requested Walter to get her some orange blossoms,
and she borrowed a diamond bracelet of Julia, and sat down to dinner with
her husband in evening dress, and dazzled him with her lovely arms and
bust, and her diamond bracelet and eyes that outshone it. She seemed ever
so much larger as well as lovelier, and Walter gazed at her with a sort
of loving awe, and she smiled archly at him, and it was the first time
she had really enjoyed her own beauty, or even troubled her head much
about it. They condensed a honey-moon into these four days, and came home
compensated for their patience, and more devoted than ever. But whilst
they were away Colonel Clifford fired his attorney at Mr. Bartley, and
when Mary came home, Bartley, who had lately connived at the love affair,
told Mary this, and forbade her strictly to hold any more intercourse
with Walter Clifford.

This was the state of things when "the hare with many friends," and only
one enemy, returned to his cottage late in the afternoon. But before
night everybody knew he had come home, and next morning they were all at
him in due order. No sooner was he seated in his workshop, studyi