of a ripe affirmative on the sweetest of lips, he was pretty well sure of him likewise.  And then a truce to all that Radical rageing and hot-pokering of the country! and lie in peace, old Shrapnel! and get on your legs when you can, and offend no more; especially be mindful not to let fly one word against a woman!  With Cecilia for wife, and a year of marriage devoted to a son and heir, Nevil might be expected to resume his duties as a naval officer, and win an honourable name for the inheritance of the young one he kissed.

There was benevolence in these previsions of Mr. Romfrey, proving how good it is for us to bow to despotic authority, if only we will bring ourselves unquestioningly to accept the previous deeds of the directing hand.

Colonel Halkett gave up his daughter for lost when she did not appear at the breakfast-table:  for yet more decidedly lost when the luncheon saw her empty place; and as time drew on toward the dinner-hour, he began to think her lost beyond hope, embarked for good and all with the madbrain.  Some little hope of a dissension between the pair, arising from the natural antagonism of her strong sense to Nevil’s extravagance, had buoyed him until it was evident that they must have alighted at an inn to eat, which signified that they had overleaped the world and its hurdles, and were as dreamy a leash of lovers as ever made a dreamland of hard earth.  The downs looked like dreamland through the long afternoon.  They shone as in a veil of silk-softly fair, softly dark.  No spot of harshness was on them save where a quarry South-westward gaped at the evening sun.

Red light struck into that round chalk maw, and the green slopes and channels and half-circle hollows were brought a mile-stride higher Steynham by the level beams.

The poor old colonel fell to a more frequent repetition of the ‘Well!’ with which he had been unconsciously expressing his perplexed mind in the kennels and through the covers during the day.  None of the gentlemen went to dress.  Mr. Culbrett was indoors conversing with Rosamund Culling.

‘What’s come to them?’ the colonel asked of Mr. Romfrey, who said shrugging, ‘Something wrong with one of the horses.’  It had happened to him on one occasion to set foot in the hole of a baked hedgehog that had furnished a repast, not without succulence, to some shepherd of the downs.  Such a case might have recurred; it was more likely to cause an upset at a walk than at a gallop:  or perhaps a shoe had been cast; and young people break no bones at a walking fall; ten to one if they do at their top speed.  Horses manage to kill their seniors for them:  the young are exempt from accident.

Colonel Halkett nodded and sighed:  ’I daresay they’re safe.  It’s that man Shrapnel’s letter—­that letter, Romfrey!  A private letter, I know; but I’ve not heard Nevil disown the opinions expressed in it.  I submit.  It’s no use resisting.  I treat my daughter as a woman capable of judging for herself.  I repeat, I submit.  I haven’t a word against Nevil except on the score of his politics.  I like him.  All I have to say is, I don’t approve of a republican and a sceptic for my son-in-law.  I yield to you, and my daughter, if she . . . !’