Walden looked up,—­his eyes were glittering—­his lips were pate and dry.

“I know-I know!”—­he said, speaking with an effort—­“You’re an honest fellow, Bainton!—­and—­and—­I thank you!  Tou not only mean well—­you have done well.  But it’s a lie, Bainton!—­it’s all a wicked, damnable lie!”

He sprang to his feet as he said this, the wrath in his eyes flashing a steel-like lightning.

“It’s a lie!” he repeated—­“Do you understand?  A cruel, abominable lie!”

Bainton twirled his cap sympathetically.

“So it be, Passon,”—­he murmured—­“So it be—­I know’d that all along!  It’s a lie set goin’ by that fine gentleman rascal, Lord Roxmouth, wot can’t get Miss Maryllia and ’er aunt’s money nohow.  Lor’ bless ye, I sees that plain enough!  But take it ’ow we will, a lie’s a nasty sort o’ burr to stick to a good name, ’speshully a name like yours, Passon,—­an’ when it comes to that I feel that moithered an’ worrited-like not knowin’ ’ow to pick the burr off again.  An’ Lord Roxmouth he be gone away or mebbe you could a’ had it out wi’ him—–­”

“That will do, Bainton!”—­said Walden, interrupting him by a gesture—­“Say no more about it, please!  I’m glad you’ve spoken,—­I’m glad I know!  But,—­let it rest there!  Never allude to it again!”

Bainton glanced up timorously at his master’s pale set face.

“Ain’t nothin’ goin’ to be done?” he faltered anxiously—­“Nothin’ to say as ’ow it’s all a lie—–­”

“Nothing on my part!”—­said Walden, quickly and sternly, “The best answer to such low gossip and slander is silence.  You understand?”

His look was a command, and Bainton felt it to be such.  Shuffling about a little, he murmured something about the ‘apples comin’ on fine in the orchard’—­as if Walden’s three days’ absence had somehow or other accelerated their ripening, and then slowly and reluctantly retired, deeply dejected in his own mind.

“For silence gives consent,” he argued dolefully with himself—­ “That’s copybook truth!  Yet o’ coorse ’tain’t to be expected as Passon would send for the town-crier from Riversford to ring a bell through the village an’ say as ’ow he ‘adn’t nothin’ to dp with Miss Vancourt nor she with ’im.  Onny the worst of it is that in this wurrld lies is allus taken for truth since the beginnin’, when the Sarpint told the first big whopper in the Garden of Eden an’ took in poor silly Eve.  An’ ye can’t contradict a lie somehow without makin’ it look more a truth than ever,—­that’s the way o’ the thing.  An’ it do stick!—­Passon himself ’ull find that out,—­it do stick, it do reely now!”