“At tea-time this arternoon,” replied Bainton.  “The train arrives at Riversford at three o’clock, if so be it isn’t behind its time,—­and if the lady gets a fly from the station, which if she ain’t ordered it afore, m’appen she won’t get it, she’ll be ’ere ’bout four.”

Instinctively Walden glanced at his watch.  It was just two o’clock.  Another hour and the antipathetic ‘Squire-ess’ would be actually on her way to the village!  He heaved a short sigh.  Forebodings of evil infected the air,—­impending change, disturbing and even disastrous to St. Rest suggested itself troublously to his mind.  Arguing inwardly with himself, he presently began to think that notwithstanding all his attempts to live a Christian life, after the manner Christianly, he was surely becoming a very selfish and extremely narrow-minded man!  He was unreasonably, illogically vexed at the return of the heiress of Abbot’s Manor; and why?  Why, chiefly because he would no longer be able to walk at liberty in Abbot’s Manor gardens and woods,—­because there would be another personality perhaps more dominant than his own in the little village, and because—­yes!—­because he had a particular aversion to women of fashion, such as Miss Vancourt undoubtedly must be, to judge from the brief exhibition of her wardrobe which, through the guilelessness of Mrs. Spruce, had been displayed before his reluctant eyes.

These objections were after all, so he told himself, really rooted in masculine selfishness,—­the absorbing selfishness of old bachelorhood, which had grown round him like a shell, shutting him out altogether from the soft influences of feminine attraction,—­so much so indeed that he had even come to look upon his domestic indoor servants as obliging machines rather than women,—­machines which it was necessary to keep well oiled with food and wages, but which could scarcely be considered as entering into his actual life more than the lawn-mower or the roasting-jack.  Yet he was invariably kind to all his dependants,—­invariably thoughtful of all their needs,—­nevertheless he maintained a certain aloofness from them, not only because he was by nature reserved, but because he judged reserve necessary in order to uphold respect.  In sickness or trouble, no one could be more quietly helpful or consolatory than he; and in the company of children he threw off all restraint and was as a child himself in the heartiness and spontaneity of his mirth and good humour,—­but with all women, save the very aged and matronly, he generally found himself at a loss, uncertain what to say to them, and equally uncertain as to how far he might accept or believe what they said to him.  The dark eyes of a sparkling brunette embarrassed him as much as the dreamy blue orbs of a lily-like blonde,—­they were curious dazzlements that got into his way at times, and made him doubtful as to whether any positive sincerity ever could or ever would lurk behind such bewildering brief flashes of light which appeared to shine forth without meaning, and vanish again without result.  And in various ways,—­he now began to think,—­ he must certainly have grown inordinately, outrageously selfish!—­ his irritation at the prospective return of Miss Vancourt proved it.  He determined to brace himself together and put the lurking devil of egotism down.