Rosamund rose abruptly as soon as the terminating notes of the Mass had been struck.

Dr. Shrapnel seemed to be concluding his devotions before he followed her example.

‘There, ma’am, you have a telegraphic system for the soul,’ he said.  ’It is harder work to travel from this place to this’ (he pointed at ear and breast) ‘than from here to yonder’ (a similar indication traversed the distance between earth and sun).  ’Man’s aim has hitherto been to keep men from having a soul for this world:  he takes it for something infernal.  He?—­I mean, they that hold power.  They shudder to think the conservatism of the earth will be shaken by a change; they dread they won’t get men with souls to fetch and carry, dig, root, mine, for them.  Right!—­what then?  Digging and mining will be done; so will harping and singing.  But then we have a natural optimacy!  Then, on the one hand, we whip the man-beast and the man-sloth; on the other, we seize that old fatted iniquity—­that tyrant! that tempter! that legitimated swindler cursed of Christ! that palpable Satan whose name is Capital! by the neck, and have him disgorging within three gasps of his life.  He is the villain!  Let him live, for he too comes of blood and bone.  He shall not grind the faces of the poor and helpless—­that’s all.’

The comicality of her having such remarks addressed to her provoked a smile on Rosamund’s lips.

‘Don’t go at him like Samson blind,’ said Mr. Lydiard; and Miss Denham, who had returned, begged her guardian to entreat the guest to stay.

She said in an undertone, ’I am very anxious you should see Captain Beauchamp, madam.’

‘I too; but he will write, and I really can wait no longer,’ Rosamund replied, in extreme apprehension lest a certain degree of pressure should overbear her repugnance to the doctor’s dinner-table.  Miss Denham’s look was fixed on her; but, whatever it might mean, Rosamund’s endurance was at an end.  She was invited to dine; she refused.  She was exceedingly glad to find herself on the high-road again, with a prospect of reaching Steynham that night; for it was important that she should not have to confess a visit to Bevisham now when she had so little of favourable to tell Mr. Everard Romfrey of his chosen nephew.  Whether she had acted quite wisely in not remaining to see Nevil, was an agitating question that had to be silenced by an appeal to her instincts of repulsion, and a further appeal for justification of them to her imaginary sisterhood of gossips.  How could she sit and eat, how pass an evening in that house, in the society of that man?  Her tuneful chorus cried, ‘How indeed.’  Besides, it would have offended Mr. Romfrey to hear that she had done so.  Still she could not refuse to remember Miss Denham’s marked intimations of there being a reason for Nevil’s friend to seize the chance of an immediate interview with him; and in her distress at the thought, Rosamund reluctantly, but as if compelled by necessity, ascribed the young lady’s conduct to a strong sense of personal interests.