Mr. Culbrett endangered his reputation for epigram in a good cause, it shall be said.

These interruptions were torture to Beauchamp.  Nevertheless the end was gained.  He sank into a chair silent.

Mr. Romfrey wished to have it out with his nephew, of whose comic appearance as a man full of thunder, and occasionally rattling, yet all the while trying to be decorous and politic, he was getting tired.  He foresaw that a tussle between them in private would possibly be too hot for his temper, admirably under control though it was.

‘Why not drag Cecil to Shrapnel?’ he said, for a provocation.

Beauchamp would not be goaded.

Colonel Halkett remarked that he would have to leave Steynham the next day.  His host remonstrated with him.  The colonel said:  ‘Early.’  He had very particular business at home.  He was positive, and declined every inducement to stay.  Mr. Romfrey glanced at Nevil, thinking, You poor fool!  And then he determined to let the fellow have five minutes alone with him.

This occurred at midnight, in that half-armoury, half-library, which was his private room.

Rosamund heard their voices below.  She cried out to herself that it was her doing, and blamed her beloved, and her master, and Dr. Shrapnel, in the breath of her self-recrimination.  The demagogue, the over-punctilious gentleman, the faint lover, surely it must be reason wanting in the three for each of them in turn to lead the other, by an excess of some sort of the quality constituting their men’s natures, to wreck a calm life and stand in contention!  Had Shrapnel been commonly reasonable he would have apologized to Mr. Romfrey, or had Mr. Romfrey, he would not have resorted to force to punish the supposed offender, or had Nevil, he would have held his peace until he had gained his bride.  As it was; the folly of the three knocked at her heart, uniting to bring the heavy accusation against one poor woman, quite in the old way:  the Who is she? of the mocking Spaniard at mention of a social catastrophe.  Rosamund had a great deal of the pride of her sex, and she resented any slur on it.  She felt almost superciliously toward Mr. Romfrey and Nevil for their not taking hands to denounce the plotter, Cecil Baskelett.  They seemed a pair of victims to him, nearly as much so as the wretched man Shrapnel.  It was their senselessness which made her guilty!  And simply because she had uttered two or three exclamations of dislike of a revolutionary and infidel she was compelled to groan under her present oppression!  Is there anything to be hoped of men?  Rosamund thought bitterly of Nevil’s idea of their progress.  Heaven help them!  But the unhappy creatures have ceased to look to a heaven for help.

We see the consequence of it in this Shrapnel complication.

Three men:  and one struck down; the other defeated in his benevolent intentions; the third sacrificing fortune and happiness:  all three owing their mischance to one or other of the vague ideas disturbing men’s heads!  Where shall we look for mother wit?—­or say, common suckling’s instinct?  Not to men, thought Rosamund.