"i was here a little early," said hampstead when his friend came in, "and i found your mother just going to church,—with a friend."

"marion fay."

"yes, miss fay."

"she is the daughter of a quaker who lives a few doors off. but though she is a quaker she goes to church as well. i envy the tone of mind of those who are able to find a comfort in pouring themselves out in gratitude to the great unknown god."

"i pour myself out in gratitude," said hampstead; "but with me it is an affair of solitude."

"i doubt whether you ever hold yourself for two hours in commune with heavenly power and heavenly influence. something more than gratitude is necessary. you must conceive that there is a duty,—by the non-performance of which you would encounter peril. then comes the feeling of safety which always follows the performance of a duty. that i never can achieve. what did you think of marion fay?"

"she is a most lovely creature."

"very pretty, is she not; particularly when speaking?

"i never care for female beauty that does not display itself in action,—either speaking, moving, laughing, or perhaps only frowning," said hampstead enthusiastically. "i was talking the other day to a sort of cousin of mine who has a reputation of being a remarkably handsome young woman. she had ever so much to say to me, and when i was in company with her a page in buttons kept coming into the room. he was a round-faced, high-cheeked, ugly boy; but i thought him so much better-looking than my cousin, because he opened his mouth when he spoke, and showed his eagerness by his eyes."

"your cousin is complimented."

"she has made her market, so it does not signify. the greeks seem to me to have regarded form without expression. i doubt whether phidias would have done much with your miss fay. to my eyes she is the perfection of loveliness."

"she is not my miss fay. she is my mother's friend."

"your mother is lucky. a woman without vanity, without jealousy, without envy—"

"where will you find one?"

"your mother. such a woman as that can, i think, enjoy feminine loveliness almost as much as a man."

"i have often heard my mother speak of marion's good qualities, but not much of her loveliness. to me her great charm is her voice. she speaks musically."

"as one can fancy melpomene did. does she come here often?"

"every day, i fancy;—but not generally when i am here. not but what she and i are great friends. she will sometimes go with me into town on a thursday morning, on her way to the meeting house."

"lucky fellow!" roden shrugged his shoulders as though conscious that any luck of that kind must come to him from another quarter, if it came at all.

"what does she talk about?"

"religion generally."

"and you?"

"anything else, if she will allow me. she would wish to convert me. i am not at all anxious to convert her, really believing that she is very well as she is."

"yes," said hampstead; "that is the worst of what we are apt to call advanced opinions. with all my self-assurance i never dare to tamper with the religious opinions of those who are younger or weaker than myself. i feel that they at any rate are safe if they are in earnest. no one, i think, has ever been put in danger by believing christ to be a god."

"they none of them know what they believe," said roden; "nor do you or i. men talk of belief as though it were a settled thing. it is so but with few; and that only with those who lack imagination. what sort of a time did you have down at castle hautboy?"

"oh,—i don't know,—pretty well. everybody was very kind, and my sister likes it. the scenery is lovely. you can look up a long reach of ulleswater from the castle terrace, and there is helvellyn in the distance. the house was full of people,—who despised me more than i did them."

"which is saying a great deal, perhaps."

"there were some uncommon apes. one young lady, not very young, asked me what i meant to do with all the land in the world when i took it away from everybody. i told her that when it was all divided equally there would be a nice little estate even for all the daughters, and that in such circumstances all the sons would certainly get married. she acknowledged that such a result would be excellent, but she did not believe in it. a world in which the men should want to marry was beyond her comprehension. i went out hunting one day."

"the hunting i should suppose was not very good."

"but for one drawback it would have been very good indeed."

"the mountains, i should have thought, would be one drawback, and the lakes another."

"not at all. i liked the mountains because of their echoes, and the lakes did not come in our way."

"where was the fault?"

"there came a man."

"whom you disliked?"

"who was a bore."

"could you not shut him up?"

"no; nor shake him off. i did at last do that, but it was by turning round and riding backwards when we were coming home. i had just invited him to ride on while i stood still,—but he wouldn't."

"did it come to that?"

"quite to that. i actually turned tail and ran away from him;—not as we ordinarily do in society when we sneak off under some pretence, leaving the pretender to think that he has made himself very pleasant; but with a full declaration of my opinion and intention."

"who was he?"

that was the question. hampstead had come there on purpose to say who the man was,—and to talk about the man with great freedom. and he was determined to do so. but he preferred not to begin that which he intended to be a severe accusation against his friend till they were walking together, and he did not wish to leave the house without saying a word further about marion fay. it was his intention to dine all alone at hendon hall. how much nicer it would be if he could dine in paradise row with marion fay! he knew it was mrs. roden's custom to dine early, after church, on sundays, so that the two maidens who made up her establishment might go out,—either to church or to their lovers, or perhaps to both, as might best suit them. he had dined there once or twice already, eating the humble, but social, leg of mutton of holloway, in preference to the varied, but solitary, banquet of hendon. he was of opinion that really intimate acquaintance demanded the practice of social feeling. to know a man very well, and never to sit at table with him, was, according to his views of life, altogether unsatisfactory. though the leg of mutton might be cold, and have no other accompaniment but the common ill-boiled potato, yet it would be better than any banquet prepared simply for the purpose of eating. he was gregarious, and now felt a longing, of which he was almost ashamed, to be admitted to the same pastures with marion fay. there was not, however, the slightest reason for supposing that marion fay would dine at no. 11, even were he asked to do so himself. nothing, in fact, could be less probable, as marion fay never deserted her father. nor did he like to give any hint to his friend that he was desirous of further immediate intimacy with marion. there would be an absurdity in doing so which he did not dare to perpetrate. only if he could have passed the morning in paradise row, and then have walked home with roden in the dark evening, he could, he thought, have said what he had to say very conveniently.

but it was impossible. he sat silent for some minute or two after roden had asked the name of the bore of the hunting field, and then answered him by proposing that they should start together on their walk towards hendon. "i am all ready; but you must tell me the name of this dreadful man."

"as soon as we have started i will. i have come here on purpose to tell you."

"to tell me the name of the man you ran away from in cumberland?"

"exactly that;—come along." and so they started, more than an hour before the time at which marion fay would return from church. "the man who annoyed me so out hunting was an intimate friend of yours."

"i have not an intimate friend in the world except yourself."

"not marion fay?"

"i meant among men. i do not suppose that marion fay was out hunting in cumberland."

"i should not have ran away from her, i think, if she had. it was mr. crocker, of the general post office."

"crocker in cumberland?"

"certainly he was in cumberland,—unless some one personated him. i met him dining at castle hautboy, when he was kind enough to make himself known to me, and again out hunting,—when he did more than make himself known to me."

"i am surprised."

"is he not away on leave?"

"oh, yes;—he is away on leave. i do not doubt that it was he."

"why should he not be in cumberland,—when, as it happens, his father is land-steward or something of that sort to my uncle persiflage?"

"because i did not know that he had any connection with cumberland. why not cumberland, or westmoreland, or northumberland, you may say? why not?—or yorkshire, or lincolnshire, or norfolk? i certainly did not suppose that a post office clerk out on his holidays would be found hunting in any county."

"you have never heard of his flea-bitten horse?"

"not a word. i didn't know that he had ever sat upon a horse. and now will you let me know why you have called him my friend?"

"is he not so?"

"by no means."

"does he not sit at the same desk with you?"

"certainly he does."

"i think i should be friends with a man if i sat at the same desk with him."

"with crocker even?" asked roden.

"well; he might be an exception."

"but if an exception to you, why not also an exception to me? as it happens, crocker has made himself disagreeable to me. instead of being my friend, he is,—i will not say my enemy, because i should be making too much of him; but nearer to being so than any one i know. now, what is the meaning of all this? why did he trouble you especially down in cumberland? why do you call him my friend? and why do you wish to speak to me about him?"

"he introduced himself to me, and told me that he was your special friend."

"then he lied."

"i should not have cared about that;—but he did more."

"what more did he do?"

"i would have been courteous to him,—if only because he sat at the same desk with you;—but—"

"but what?"

"there are things which are difficult to be told."

"if they have to be told, they had better be told," said roden, almost angrily.

"whether friend or not, he knew of—your engagement with my sister."

"impossible!"

"he told me of it," said lord hampstead impetuously, his tongue now at length loosed. "told me of it! he spoke of it again and again to my extreme disgust. though the thing had been fixed as fate, he should not have mentioned it."

"certainly not."

"but he did nothing but tell me of your happiness, and good luck, and the rest of it. it was impossible to stop him, so that i had to ride away from him. i bade him be silent,—as plainly as i could without mentioning fanny's name. but it was of no use."

"how did he know it?"

"you told him!"

"i!"

"so he said." this was not strictly the case. crocker had so introduced the subject as to have avoided the palpable lie of declaring that the tidings had been absolutely given by roden to himself. but he had not the less falsely intended to convey that impression to hampstead, and had conveyed it. "he gave me to understand that you were speaking about it continually at your office." roden turned round and looked at the other man, white with rage—as though he could not allow himself to utter a word. "it was as i tell you. he began it at the castle, and afterwards continued it whenever he could get near me when hunting."

"and you believed him?"

"when he repeated his story so often what was i to do?"

"knock him off his horse."

"and so be forced to speak of my sister to every one in the hunt and in the county? you do not feel how much is due to a girl's name."

"i think i do. i think that of all men i am the most likely to feel what is due to the name of lady frances trafford. of course i never mentioned it to any one at the post office."

"from whom had he heard it?"

"how can i answer that? probably through some of your own family. it has made its way through lady kingsbury to castle hautboy, and has then been talked about. i am not responsible for that."

"not for that certainly,—if it be so."

"nor because such a one as he has lied. you should not have believed it of me."

"i was bound to ask you."

"you were bound to tell me, but should not have asked me. there are things which do not require asking. what must i do with him?"

"nothing. nothing can be done. you could not touch the subject without alluding to my sister. she is coming back to hendon in another week."

"she was there before, but i did not see her."

"of course you did not see her. how should you?"

"simply by going there."

"she would not have seen you." there came a black frown over roden's brow as he heard this. "it has been understood between my father and fanny and myself that you should not come to hendon while she is living with me."

"should not i have been a party to that agreement?"

"hardly, i think. this agreement must have been made whether you assented or not. on no other terms would my father have permitted her to come. it was most desirable that she should be separated from lady kingsbury."

"oh, yes."

"and therefore the agreement was advisable. i would not have had her on any other terms."

"why not?"

"because i think that such visitings would have been unwise. it is no use my blinking it to you. i do not believe that the marriage is practicable."

"i do."

"as i don't, of course i cannot be a party to throwing you together. were you to persist in coming you would only force me to find a home for her elsewhere."

"i have not disturbed you."

"you have not. now i want you to promise me that you will not. i have assured my father that it shall be so. will you say that you will neither come to her at hendon hall, or write to her, while she is staying with me?" he paused on the road for an answer, but roden walked on without making one, and hampstead was forced to accompany him. "will you promise me?"

"i will not promise. i will do nothing which may possibly subject me to be called a liar. i have no wish to knock at any door at which i do not think myself to be welcome."

"you know how welcome you would be at mine, but for her."

"it might be that i should find myself forced to endeavour to see her, and i will therefore make no promise. a man should fetter himself by no assurances of that kind as to his conduct. if a man be a drunkard, it may be well that he should bind himself by a vow against drinking. but he who can rule his own conduct should promise nothing. good-day now. i must be back to dinner with my mother."

then he took his leave somewhat abruptly, and returned. hampstead went on to hendon with his thoughts sometimes fixed on his sister, sometimes on roden, whom he regarded as impracticable, sometimes on that horrid crocker;—but more generally on marion fay, whom he resolved that he must see again, whatever might be the difficulties in his way.