After some waiting, Cecilia proposed to turn back.

Mrs. Devereux looked into her eyes.  ‘I’ll take the lead,’ she said, and started forward, pursued by Palmet.  Cecilia followed at a sullen canter.

Before they came up to Beauchamp, the long-shanked man had stalked away townward.  Lydiard held Beauchamp by the hand.  Some last words, after the manner of instructions, passed between them, and then Lydiard also turned away.

‘I say, Beauchamp, Mrs. Devereux wants to hear who that man is,’ Palmet said, drawing up.

‘That man is Dr. Shrapnel,’ said Beauchamp, convinced that Cecilia had checked her horse at the sight of the doctor.

‘Dr. Shrapnel,’ Palmet informed Mrs. Devereux.

She looked at him to seek his wits, and returning Beauchamp’s admiring salutation with a little bow and smile, said, ’I fancied it was a gentleman we met in Spain.’

‘He writes books,’ observed Palmet, to jog a slow intelligence.

‘Pamphlets, you mean.’

‘I think he is not a pamphleteer’, Mrs. Devereux said.

‘Mr. Lydiard, then, of course; how silly I am!  How can you pardon me!’ Beauchamp was contrite; he could not explain that a long guess he had made at Miss Halkett’s reluctance to come up to him when Dr. Shrapnel was with him had preoccupied his mind.  He sent off Palmet the bearer of a pretext for bringing Lydiard back, and then said to Cecilia, ’You recognized Dr. Shrapnel?’

‘I thought it might be Dr. Shrapnel’, she was candid enough to reply.  ’I could not well recognize him, not knowing him.’

’Here comes Mr. Lydiard; and let me assure you, if I may take the liberty of introducing him, he is no true Radical.  He is a philosopher—­one of the flirts, the butterflies of politics, as Dr. Shrapnel calls them.’

Beauchamp hummed over some improvized trifles to Lydiard, then introduced him cursorily, and all walked in the direction of Itchincope.  It was really the Mr. Lydiard Mrs. Devereux had met in Spain, so they were left in the rear to discuss their travels.  Much conversation did not go on in front.  Cecilia was very reserved.  By-and-by she said, ’I am glad you have come into the country early to-day.’

He spoke rapturously of the fresh air, and not too mildly of his pleasure in meeting her.  Quite off her guard, she began to hope he was getting to be one of them again, until she heard him tell Lord Palmet that he had come early out of Bevisham for the walk with Dr. Shrapnel, and to call on certain rich tradesmen living near Itchincope.  He mentioned the name of Dollikins.

‘Dollikins?’ Palmet consulted a perturbed recollection.  Among the entangled list of new names he had gathered recently from the study of politics, Dollikins rang in his head.  He shouted, ’Yes, Dollikins! to be sure.  Lespel has him to lunch to-day;—­calls him a gentleman-tradesman; odd fish! and told a fellow called—­where is it now?—­a name like brass or copper . . .  Copperstone?  Brasspot? . . . told him he’d do well to keep his Tory cheek out of sight.  It ’s the names of those fellows bother one so!  All the rest’s easy.’