‘Yes, the march of progress has been hastened a little, doubtless,’ said Hubert.  ’I have to content myself with the grass and the trees.  Well, I have done all I could, now other people must enjoy the results.  Ah, look! there is a van of the Edgeworths’ furniture coming to the Manor.  They are happy people!  Something like an ideal married couple, and with nothing to do but to wander about the valley and enjoy themselves.’

‘I am rather surprised you gave them so long a lease,’ remarked Mr. Wyvern.

’Why not?  I shall never live here again.  As long as I had work to do it was all right; but to continue to live in that house was impossible.  And in twenty years it would be no less impossible.  I should fall into a monomania, and one of a very loathsome kind.’

Mr. Wyvern pondered.  They walked on a few paces before Hubert again spoke.

’There was a. letter from her in the “Belwick Chronicle” yesterday morning Something on the placard in Agworth station caused me to buy a copy.  The Tory paper, it seems, had a leader a day or two ago on Socialism, and took occasion to sneer at Mutimer, not by name, but in an unmistakable way—­the old scandal of course.  She wrote a letter to the editor, and he courteously paid no attention to it.  So she wrote to the “Chronicle.”  They print her in large type, and devote a leader to the subject—­party capital, of course.’

He ceased on a bitter tone, then, before his companion could reply, added violently: 

‘It is hideous to see her name in such places!’

‘Let us speak freely of this,’ returned Mr. Wyvern.  ’You seem to me to be very unjust.  Your personal feeling makes you less acute in judging than I should have expected.  Surely her behaviour is very admirable.’

’Oh, I am not unjust in that sense.  I have never refused to believe in his innocence technically.’

’Excuse me, that has nothing to do with the matter.  All we have to look at is this.  She is herself convinced of his innocence, and therefore makes it her supreme duty to defend his memory.  It appears to me that she acts altogether nobly.  In spite of all the evidence that was brought on his side, the dastardly spirit of politics has persisted in making Mutimer a sort of historical character, a type of the hypocritical demagogue, to be cited whenever occasion offers.  Would it be possible to attach a more evil significance to a man’s name than that which Mutimer bears, and will continue to bear, among certain sections of writing and speechifying vermin?  It is a miserable destiny.  If every man who achieves notoriety paid for his faults in this way, what sort of reputations would history consist of?  I won’t say that it isn’t a good thing, speaking generally, but in the individual case it is terribly hard.  Would you have his widow keep silence?  That would be the easier thing to do, be sure of it—­ for her, a thousand times the easier.  I regard her as the one entirely noble woman it has been my lot to know.  And if you thought calmly you could not speak of her with such impatience.’