The Mitchelhurst postman, coming up to the Place in his daily round, found a young man loitering to and fro within view of the gate. The morning was a pleasant one. The roadside grass was grey with dew, and glistening pearls and diamonds were strung on the threads of gossamer, tangled over bush and blade. The hollies in the hedgerows were brave and bright, and there were many-tinted leaves yet clinging to the bramble-sprays. Sun and wet together had turned the common road to a shining, splendid way, up which the old postman crept, a dull, little, toiling figure, with a bag over his shoulder, and something white in his hand. The young man timed his indolent stroll so that they met each other on the weedy slope, which led to the iron gate, with its solid pillars, and white stone balls. There, with the briefest possible nod by way of salutation, he demanded his letters.

The old fellow knew him as the gentleman who was staying with Mr. Hayes, and touched his cap obsequiously. He had carried his bag for more than thirty years, and remembered old Squire Rothwell, and Mr. John, and he fumbled with the letters in his hand, half expecting a curse at his slowness, and hardly knowing what name he was to look for. The other stood with his head high, showing a sharply-cut profile as he turned a little, looking intently in the direction of the Place. Through the black bars shone a pale bright picture of blue sky, and level turf, and the gnarled and fantastic branches of the sunlit avenue. There were yellow leaves on the straight roadway, and shadows softly interlaced, and at the end the white, silent house.

The postman finished his investigation, and announced in a hesitating tone, "No, sir, no letter, sir. No letter at all, name of Rothwell."

The young man turned upon him. "Harding, I said."

"Yes, sir. No, sir, no letter name of Harding."

"Are you sure? Give them to me."

He looked them over. There were letters and papers for Mr. Hayes, one or two for the servants, and one that had come from Devonshire for Barbara. He gave them back with a meditative frown, and turned on his heel without a word. The postman pushed the gate just sufficiently to permit of a crab-like entrance to the grounds, and plodded along the avenue, while the young fellow walked definitely away towards the village.

"The old boy doesn't write business letters on Sunday, I dare say," he said to himself. "No, I don't suppose he would. Well, I shall hear to-morrow. As well to-morrow as to-day, perhaps—better, perhaps. And yet—and yet—Oh God! to get to work! I have banished myself from her presence, I have shut that gate against me—that old fool goes crawling up there with his letters—any one in Mitchelhurst may knock at that door, and I may not! There's nothing left for me but to do the task she set me, and by Heaven, I will! I shall have the right to speak to her then, at any rate!"

Barbara had intended to see Reynold before he left that morning. She did not know what she wanted to say, she was uneasy at the thought of the interview, but she could not endure that he should be dismissed from the old house without a parting word. While Harding was moodily doubting whether he had not alienated her for ever, she was wondering what she could say or do to atone for the wrong done to him by her timidity. She did not fully understand the meaning of the wrathful anguish of his last speech, but she knew that she had pained him. She planned a score of dialogues, she wearied herself in vain endeavours to guess what he would say, and then, tired out, she solved the question by sleeping till the sunlight fell upon her face, and the banished man was already beyond the gate.

She knew the truth the moment she awoke. It was only to confirm her certainty that she dressed hurriedly and went out into the passage, to see the door standing wide, and the vacant room. It seemed but yesterday, and yet so long ago, since she made it ready for the coming guest, who had left it in anger. Barbara sighed, and turned away. At the head of the stairs she recalled the slim, dark figure that had stood there so few hours before, fixing his angry eyes upon her, and grasping the balustrade with long fingers as he spoke. The very ticking of the old clock reminded her of their talk together the morning after he came, and seemed to say "gone! gone! gone! gone!" as she went by.

Her uncle came down a few minutes later, greeted her shortly, and glanced at the table. It was laid for two. "I suppose there is nothing to wait for?" he said.

"Nothing," said Barbara, and she rang the bell.

He unfolded a newspaper and spoke from behind it. "You know that young fellow is gone?"

"Yes."

"Time he did go! I wish he had never come! Did you say good-bye to him?"

"No. He went before I was down."

Mr. Hayes uttered a little sound expressive of satisfaction, and the girl perceived that she had accidentally led him to suppose that she had had no talk with Harding since the quarrel. She did not speak. The maid came into the room with the urn, and Mr. Hayes turned to her. "What man was that I saw in the hall just now?"

"He came for the gentleman's portmanteau, sir. He was to take it to Mrs. Simmonds."

He started, but controlled himself. "Mrs. Simmonds?"

"Yes, sir, Mrs. Simmonds at the shop."

Mr. Hayes was silent only till the door was closed behind her. Then, "He has done that to spite me!" he said furiously. "Serves me right for trying to be civil to one of these confounded Rothwells! They have the devil's own temper, every one of them, and if they can do you a bad turn, they will!"

Barbara said nothing, but made tea rather drearily.

"Confound him!" Mr. Hayes began afresh. "Now I suppose the whole place will be cackling about this! He deserves to be kicked out of the parish, and I should like to do it! I wish to heaven, Barbara, you wouldn't pick young men out of the ditches in this fashion! You see what comes of it!"

Barbara, appealed to in this direct and reasonable manner, plucked up her spirit, and replied, rather loftily, that she would certainly remember in future. She further remarked that the fish was getting cold.

Mr. Hayes threw down the paper, and took his place. There was silence for a minute or two, and then he began again.

"There isn't a soul in Mitchelhurst that doesn't know he was staying here. What do you suppose they will say when they find him starting off at a moment's notice, and taking a lodging in the village, not a stone's throw from my gate?"

Barbara privately thought that, as Mr. Harding had betaken himself to the further end of Mitchelhurst, her uncle's talent for throwing stones must be remarkable. She did not suggest this, however, and when he repeated his question, "What do you suppose they will say?" she only replied that she did not know, she was sure.

"Don't you?" said he, with withering scorn. "Well, I do." It was true enough. He could guess pretty well what the gossips would say, and the sting of it was that their version would not differ very much from the actual fact.

Barbara looked down, and finished her breakfast without a word. She knew that silence was the safest course she could adopt, since it gave him no chance of turning his anger on her, but she also knew that it irritated him dreadfully. That, however, she did not mind. Barbara herself was rather cross that morning. She had meant to be up early, and she had slept later than usual; she was vexed and disappointed, and she had been worried by the jarring tempers of the last two days. She kept her head bent, and her lips closed, while Mr. Hayes drank his second cup of tea with a muttered accompaniment of abuse.

"Look here," he said suddenly, getting up, and going to the fire, "I don't know how long that fellow means to stay in Mitchelhurst, but, till he leaves, you don't go beyond the gate. I don't suppose you would wish to do so"—he paused, but she was apparently absorbed in the consideration of a little ring on her finger—"I should hope you have proper feeling enough not to wish to do so"—this appeal was also received in a strictly neutral manner—"but in any case you have my express command to the contrary."

"Very well," said Barbara, with a little affectation of being rather weary of the whole subject.

"I do not choose that you should be exposed to insult," Mr. Hayes continued.

"Very well," said Barbara again. "I can stay in if you like, though I don't think Mr. Harding would insult me."

"I beg your pardon, my dear, but you are not qualified to judge in this matter. If you had heard Mr. Harding's conversation last night you might not be quite so sure what he would or would not do. It is my duty to protect you from an unpleasant possibility, and you will oblige me by not going beyond—or rather by not going near the gate."

Barbara, tired of saying "Very well," said "All right."

"Wednesday is the night of Pryor's entertainment at the schools. I shall be sorry to disappoint him, but I certainly shall not go unless Mr. Harding has left the place. He has shown such a deplorable want of taste and proper feeling that he would probably take that opportunity of thrusting himself upon us."

Mr. Hayes paused once more, but the girl did not seem inclined either to defend or to denounce their late guest. She changed her position listlessly, and gazed out of the window.

"A gentleman would not, but that proves nothing with regard to Mr. Harding. You are very silent this morning, Barbara."

"I have a headache," she said, "I'm tired," and to her great relief, Mr. Hayes, after walking two or three times up and down the room, went off to his study.

The poor little man was not happy. He sincerely regretted the quarrel of the evening before, which had come upon him, as upon Reynold, unawares. He was accustomed to the society of a few neighbours, who understood him, and said behind his back, "Oh, you must not mind what Hayes says!" or "I met Hayes yesterday—a little bit more cracked than usual!" and took all his sallies good-humouredly, with argument, perhaps, or loud-voiced denial at the time, but nothing in the way of consequences. Thunder might roll, but no bolt fell, and the sky was as clear as usual at the next meeting. Mr. Hayes had unconsciously fallen into the habit of talking without any sense of responsibility. On this occasion a variety of circumstances had combined to irritate him, and his personal dislike of Reynold Harding had given a touch of acrid malice to his attack, but he meant no more than to have the pleasure of contradicting, and, if possible, silencing his companion. The game was played more roughly than usual, but Mr. Hayes never realised that his adversary was angrily in earnest till it was too late. Excitement had mastered him, there was an interchange of speeches, swift and fierce as blows, and then he saw Kate Rothwell's son, standing before him, trembling with fury, and hoarsely declaring that he would leave the house at once. He had only to close his eyes to see him again, the tall young figure leaning forward into the light, with his clenched hands resting on the polished table, amid the disarray of silver and glasses, his dark brows drawn down, and his angry eyes aglow. Conciliation was impossible on either side, though the shock of definite rupture so far sobered them that Harding's departure was deferred to the morning. But, "I will never break bread under your roof again!" the young man had said, with a glance round the room, and a curious significance of tone. Then he turned away to encounter Barbara upon the stairs.

To Harding, matters had seemed at their worst during the black hours of silence, and the morning brought something of comfort. If there is but a possibility that work may help us in our troubles, the dullest day is better than the night. But to Mr. Hayes the daylight came drearily, showing the folly of a business which nothing could mend. For more than a quarter of a century he had plumed himself on his gratitude to Kate Rothwell for her kindness to his dead love, and had imagined that he only lacked an opportunity to serve her. And this graceful sentiment, being put to the test, had not prevented him from quarrelling with her son, and turning the young fellow out of doors. Yes, he, Herbert Hayes, had actually driven Kate's boy from Mitchelhurst Place! and what made it worse, if anything could make it worse, was the revelation of the utter impotence of that cherished gratitude. He regretted what he had done, but he must abide by it. Apologise to Harding?—he would die first! Own to one of the Rothwells that he had been in the wrong?—the mere thought, crossing his mind, as he tied his cravat that morning, very nearly choked him. Never—never! Not if it were Kate herself! But he reddened to the roots of his white hair at the thought of the gossip and laughter which would follow the unseemly squabble.

He would be unfairly judged. He said so over and over again, and in a certain sense it was true, for he had never intended to quarrel with his guest. But he could not prove even the innocence he felt. He remembered two or three bitter fragments of their wrangling which would condemn him if repeated. Yet he knew he had not meant them as his judges would take them. "Well, but," some practical neighbour would say, "if you say such things, what do you expect?" That was just it—he had expected nothing, though nobody would believe it, and all at once this catastrophe had come upon him.

So he went down to breakfast, sincerely troubled and repentant, and consequently in a very unpleasant mood. Repentance seldom makes a man an agreeable companion, and when it seizes the head of the house the subordinate members naturally share his discomfort. The moment he set foot in the breakfast-room he was met by the news of Harding's stay in the village, and his anger blazed up again, though, through it all, he had an uncomfortable consciousness that the young man had a right to stay in Mitchelhurst if he pleased. If he could only have convinced himself that Reynold was utterly in the wrong, he would have forgiven him and been happy. But it is almost impossible to forgive a man who is somewhat in the wrong, yet less so than oneself.

Harding had been guided by Barbara in his search for a lodging. When they were standing together at the edge of the ditch, she had reminded her uncle that Mrs. Simmonds had let her rooms to a man who came surveying. The fact was so unprecedented that the good woman might be pardoned for imagining herself an authority on what gentlemen liked, and what gentlemen expected, on the strength of that one experience. Harding confirmed her in her innocent belief by agreeing to everything she proposed. Within half an hour of his arrival he was sitting down to what the surveyor always took for breakfast, and the surveyor's favourite dinner was cooking for him as he walked fast and far on the first road that presented itself. He almost reached Littlemere before he turned, and had to scramble over a hedge, to avoid what might have been an awkward meeting with Mr. Masters. The little squire went by unsuspectingly, though Reynold, finding himself face to face with a bull in the meadow, nearly jumped back upon him. Happily however the bull took time to consider, and before he had made up his mind whether he liked his visitor or not, the coast was clear, and the young man sprang down into the road, and set off on his way back to Mitchelhurst, where he arrived just as Mrs. Simmonds was beginning to look out for him. The surveyor had ordered rather an early dinner.

Harding had done his best to check any gossip about his affairs, but his landlady was burning with curiosity. She made a remark about Mr. Hayes as she set the dish on the table, and her lodger replied that it certainly was a queer fancy for a lonely man to live in that great house, and might he trouble Mrs. Simmonds for a fork? She supplied the omission with many apologies, and said that Mr. Hayes was not very popular in the neighbourhood, she believed.

"Isn't he?" said Reynold, slicing away. "Well, all I can say is that I found him a very hospitable old gentleman. He had never seen me before, and he invited me to stay there for three days. Wouldn't take any denial."

"Well, to be sure, sir, we can but speak as we find," said Mrs. Simmonds, handing the potatoes. "Only, you see, there are some of us who remember the old family—you'll excuse me, sir, but it's wonderful how you favour Mr. John—and it's not the same, sir, having a stranger there. It's not like old times."

"No," said Reynold with a jarring little laugh. "I should think it was a good deal better. Thank you, Mrs. Simmonds, I have all I want."

And with a nod, which was exactly Mr. John's, he dismissed the old lady.

She was disconcerted; she did not know what to make of this young man with the Rothwell features, who was not gratified by a respectful allusion to the family. "A good deal better!" Well, of course, the Rothwells held themselves very high, and thought other people were just the dirt under their feet. There was no pleasing them with anything you sent in, nothing was good enough, and they expected you to stand curtseying and curtseying for their custom, and to wait for your money till all the profit was gone. Mr. Hayes paid as soon as the bill was sent in, and Miss Strange was a pleasant-spoken young lady. "A good deal better"—well, no doubt it was.

And yet the good woman had not been insincere when she spoke of the old times with a regretful accent in her voice. She remembered John Rothwell's father as a middle-aged gentleman, alert and strong. Those old times were the times when she was a rosy-cheeked girl, whom Simmonds came courting at her father the wheel-wright's, and not Simmonds only, for she might have done better if she had chosen. It was in the good old times that they set up their little shop, and that their little girl was born who had been in the churchyard three-and-twenty years come Christmas. There were no times now like those before Mitchelhurst Place was sold, when she didn't know what rheumatism was, and there were none of your new-fangled Board Schools, to teach children to think little of their elders. It was not to be supposed that Mrs. Simmonds thought that her stiff old joints would become flexible again if the Rothwells came back to the manor-house, but she certainly felt that in their reign the world went its way with fewer obstructions and less weariness, and was more brightly visible without the aid of spectacles. She had an impression, too, that the weather was better.

She straightened herself laboriously after taking the apple-pie from the oven, and was horrified to find the crust a little caught on one side. Having to explain how this had occurred when she carried it in, she had no opportunity of continuing the previous conversation, and the moment dinner was over Reynold was out again. The fact was that Mrs. Simmonds's parlour, which was small and low, and had been carefully shut up for many months, was not very attractive to the young man, who was fresh from the faded stateliness of the old Place. Besides, he was anxious to keep down importunate thoughts by sheer weariness, if in no other way.

He went that afternoon to the Hall, the dreary old farmhouse which Barbara had pointed out as the Rothwells' earlier home, and walked in the sodden pastures where she picked her cowslips in the spring. He looked more kindly at the old house, in spite of the ignoble disorder of its surroundings, but he lingered longest at the gate where she had shown him Mitchelhurst, spread out before him like the Promised Land. He studied it all in the fading light, and then, with a farewell glance at the white far-off front of the Place, he went down into the village, tired enough to drop asleep over the fire after tea.

"To-morrow, the letter," was his last thought as he lay down.