When Mounser Green met her at the station she was beyond measure weary.  Through the whole journey she had been struggling to restrain her sobs so that her maid should neither hear nor see them.  “Don’t mind me, Mr. Green; I am only tired,—­so tired,” she said as she got into the carriage which he had brought.

He had with him a long, formal-looking letter addressed to herself.  But she was too weary to open it that night.  It was the letter conveying the tidings of the legacy which Morton had made in her favour.

CHAPTER XIV

Lord Rufford’s Model Farm

At this time Senator Gotobed was paying a second visit to Rufford Hall.  In the matter of Goarly and Scrobby he had never given way an inch.  He was still strongly of opinion that a gentleman’s pheasants had no right to eat his neighbour’s corn, and that if damage were admitted, the person committing the injury should not take upon himself to assess the damage.  He also thought,—­and very often declared his thoughts,—­that Goarly was justified in shooting not only foxes but hounds also when they came upon his property, and in moments of excitement had gone so far as to say that not even horses should be held sacred.  He had, however, lately been driven to admit that Goarly himself was not all that a man should be, and that Mrs. Goarly’s goose was an impostor.  It was the theory,—­the principle for which he combated, declaring that the evil condition of the man himself was due to the evil institutions among which he had been reared.  By degrees evidence had been obtained of Scrobby’s guilt in the matter of the red herrings, and he was to be tried for the offence of putting down poison.  Goarly was to be the principal witness against his brother conspirator.  Lord Rufford, instigated by his brother-in-law, and liking the spirit of the man, had invited the Senator to stay at the Hall while the case was being tried at the Rufford Quarter Sessions.  I am afraid the invitation was given in a spirit of triumph over the Senator rather than with genuine hospitality.  It was thought well that the American should be made to see in public the degradation of the abject creature with whom he had sympathised.  Perhaps there were some who thought that in this way they would get the Senator’s neck under their heels.  If there were such they were likely to be mistaken, as the Senator was not a man prone to submit himself to such treatment.

He was seated at table with Lady Penwether and Miss Penge when Lord Rufford and his brother-in-law came into the room, after parting with Miss Trefoil in the manner described in the last chapter.  Lady Penwether had watched their unwelcome visitor as she took her way across the park and had whispered something to Miss Penge.  Miss Penge understood the matter thoroughly, and would not herself have made the slightest allusion to the other young lady.  Had the Senator not been there the two gentlemen would have been allowed