e, not being one of
those elderly gentlemen who are easily blinded--on the contrary, finding
himself on all occasions extremely wide-awake--had watched them when
they bade each other good-night. He had just seen their eyes meet
once--only once. Some natures would have taken pleasure in the glance
then surprised, because there was no harm and some delight in it. It was
by no means a glance of mutual intelligence, for mutual love secrets
existed not between them. There was nothing then of craft and
concealment to offend: only Mr. Moore's eyes, looking into Caroline's,
felt they were clear and gentle; and Caroline's eyes, encountering Mr.
Moore's, confessed they were manly and searching. Each acknowledged the
charm in his or her own way. Moore smiled slightly, and Caroline
coloured as slightly. Mr. Helstone could, on the spot, have rated them
both. They annoyed him. Why? Impossible to say. If you had asked him
what Moore merited at that moment, he would have said a "horsewhip;" if
you had inquired into Caroline's deserts, he would have adjudged her a
box on the ear; if you had further demanded the reason of such
chastisements, he would have stormed against flirtation and
love-making, and vowed he would have no such folly going on under his
roof.

These private considerations, combined with political reasons, fixed his
resolution of separating the cousins. He announced his will to Caroline
one evening as she was sitting at work near the drawing-room window. Her
face was turned towards him, and the light fell full upon it. It had
struck him a few minutes before that she was looking paler and quieter
than she used to look. It had not escaped him either that Robert Moore's
name had never, for some three weeks past, dropped from her lips; nor
during the same space of time had that personage made his appearance at
the rectory. Some suspicion of clandestine meetings haunted his mind.
Having but an indifferent opinion of women, he always suspected them. He
thought they needed constant watching. It was in a tone dryly
significant he desired her to cease her daily visits to the Hollow. He
expected a start, a look of depreciation. The start he saw, but it was a
very slight one; no look whatever was directed to him.

"Do you hear me?" he asked.

"Yes, uncle."

"Of course you mean to attend to what I say?"

"Yes, certainly."

"And there must be no letter-scribbling to your cousin Hortense--no
intercourse whatever. I do not appr