Poor Elinor!  For a long time her reason bowed before the knowledge of these horrible facts, and when she did at last recover her senses, her beauty had faded beneath the blight of sorrow like the brilliant but evanescent glow of the evening cloud, which vanishes at the approach of night.  Weary of life, she did not regret the loss of those fatal charms which had been to her a source of such misery.

The last time the rose tint ever visited her once blooming cheeks was when suddenly informed by Mr. Hurdlestone of his brother’s marriage with a young lady of large fortune.  “May he be happy,” she exclaimed, clasping her hands together, whilst the deepest crimson suffused her face.  “I was not worthy to be his wife!” Ere the sentence was concluded the color had faded from her cheek, which no after emotion recalled.

His brother’s marriage produced a strange effect upon the mind of Mark Hurdlestone.  It cheated him of a part of his revenge.  He had expected that the loss of Elinor would have stung Algernon to madness; that his existence would have become insupportable without the woman he loved.  How great was his mortification when, neither by word nor letter, nor in conversation with his friends, did his injured brother ever revert to the subject!  That Algernon did not feel the blow, could scarcely be inferred from his silence.  The grief he felt was too acute for words, and Algernon was still too faithful to the object of his first ardent attachment to upbraid her conduct to others.  Mark, who could not understand this delicacy of sentiment, concluded that Elinor was no longer regarded with affection by her lover.  Elinor comprehended his silence better, and she loved him more intensely for his forbearance.

Algernon the world reputed rich and happy, and the Squire despised Elinor when her person was no longer coveted by his rival.  His temper, constitutionally bad, became intolerable, and he treated his uncomplaining wife with such unkindness, that it would have broken her heart, if the remembrance of a deeper sorrow had not rendered her indifferent to his praise or censure.  She considered his kindest mercy was neglect.

Having now no other passion to gratify but avarice, Mark Hurdlestone’s hoarding propensities returned with double force.  He gradually retrenched his domestic expenses; laid down his carriage; sold his horses; discharged his liveried servants; and, to the astonishment of his wondering neighbors, let the noble park to a rich farmer in the parish, with permission to break it up with the plough.  He no longer suffered the produce of his extensive gardens to be consumed in the house, or given to the poor; but sold the fruit and vegetables to any petty greengrocer in the village, who thought it worth his while to walk up to the Hall, and drive a bargain with the stingy Squire.  He not only assisted in gathering the fruit, for fear he should be robbed, but often acted as scarecrow to the birds, whom he reviled as noisy, useless nuisances, vexatiously sent to destroy the fruits of the earth.