There was one thing I was glad to know,—­that Mr. Hamilton favoured Max’s suit.  At least I should not be working against him.  I do not know why, but the thought of doing so would have pained me:  I no longer wished to array myself for war against Mr. Hamilton; my enmity had died a natural death for want of fuel.

I felt grateful to him for his kindness to Max; no doubt he had a fellow-feeling with him.  That dear old gossip, Mrs. Maberley, had told me something about Mr. Hamilton on my second visit that had made me feel very sorry for him.  Max knew about it, of course; he had said a word to me once on the subject, but it was not Max’s way to gossip about his neighbours; he once said, laughing, that he left all the choice bits of scandal to his good old friend at Maplehurst.

It was from Mrs. Maberley that I heard all about Mr. Hamilton’s disappointment, and why he had not married.  When he was about eight-and-twenty he had been engaged to a young widow.

‘She was a beautiful creature, my dear,’ observed the old lady; ’the colonel said he had never seen a handsomer woman.  She was an Irish beauty, and had those wonderful gray eyes and dark eyelashes that make you wonder what colour they are, and she had the sweetest smile possible; any man would have been bewitched by it.  I never saw a young man more in love than Giles:  when he came here he could talk of nothing but Mrs. Carrick:  her name was Ella, I remember.  Well, it went on for some months, and he was preparing for the wedding,—­there was to be a nursery got ready, for she had one little boy, and Giles already doted on the child,—­when all at once there came a letter from his lady-love; and a very pretty letter it was.  Giles must forgive her, it said, she was utterly wretched at the thought of the pain she was giving him, but she was mistaken in the strength of her attachment.  She had come to the conclusion that they would not be happy together, that in fact she preferred some one else.

’She did not mention that this other lover was richer than Giles and had a title, but of course he found out that this was the case.  The fickle Irish beauty had caught the fancy of an elderly English nobleman with a large family of grown-up sons and daughters.  My dear, it was a very heartless piece of work:  it changed Giles completely.  He never spoke about it to any one, but if ever a man was heart-broken, Giles was:  he was never the same after that; it made him hard and bitter; he is always railing against women, or saying disagreeable home-truths about them.  And of course Mrs. Carrick, or rather Lady Howe, is to blame for that.  Oh, my dear, she may deck herself with diamonds, as they say she does, and call herself happy,—­which she is not, with a gouty, ill-tempered old husband who is jealous of her,—­but I’ll be bound she thinks of Giles sometimes with regret, and scorns herself for her folly.’

Poor Mr. Hamilton!  And this had all happened about six or seven years ago.  No wonder he looked stern and said bitter things.  He was not naturally sweet-tempered, like Max; such a misfortune would sour him.