“Did you like the Arab horses in India?”

“Yes, after I got used to their careless ways.  That horse you must have seen me on the other day, is very nearly a pure Arab.  He belongs to Captain Everard, and carries Miss Oldcastle beautifully.  I was quite sorry to take him from her, but it was her own doing.  She would have me go with her.  I think I have lost much firmness since I was ill.”

“If the loss of firmness means the increase of kindness, I do not think you will have to lament it,” I answered.  “Does Captain Everard make a long stay?”

“He stays from day to day.  I wish he would go.  I don’t know what to do.  Mrs Oldcastle and he form one party in the house; Miss Oldcastle and Judy another; and each is trying to gain me over.  I don’t want to belong to either.  If they would only let me alone!”

“What do they want of you, Mr Stoddart?”

“Mrs Oldcastle wants me to use my influence with Ethelwyn, to persuade her to behave differently to Captain Everard.  The old lady has set her heart on their marriage, and Ethelwyn, though she dares not break with him, she is so much afraid of her mother, yet keeps him somehow at arm’s length.  Then Judy is always begging me to stand up for her aunt.  But what’s the use of my standing up for her if she won’t stand up for herself; she never says a word to me about it herself.  It’s all Judy’s doing.  How am I to know what she wants?”

“I thought you said just now she asked you to ride with her?”

“So she did, but nothing more.  She did not even press it, only the tears came in her eyes when I refused, and I could not bear that; so I went against my will.  I don’t want to make enemies.  I am sure I don’t see why she should stand out.  He’s a very good match in point of property and family too.”

“Perhaps she does not like him?” I forced myself to say.

“Oh!  I suppose not, or she would not be so troublesome.  But she could arrange all that if she were inclined to be agreeable to her friends.  After all I have done for her!  Well, one must not look to be repaid for anything one does for others.  I used to be very fond of her:  I am getting quite tired of her miserable looks.”

And what had this man done for her, then?  He had, for his own amusement, taught her Hindostanee; he had given her some insight into the principles of mechanics, and he had roused in her some taste for the writings of the Mystics.  But for all that regarded the dignity of her humanity and her womanhood, if she had had no teaching but what he gave her, her mind would have been merely “an unweeded garden that grows to seed.”  And now he complained that in return for his pains she would not submit to the degradation of marrying a man she did not love, in order to leave him in the enjoyment of his own lazy and cowardly peace.  Really he was a worse man than I had thought him.  Clearly he would not help to keep her in the right path, not even interfere to prevent her from being pushed into the wrong one.  But perhaps he was only expressing his own discomfort, not giving his real judgment, and I might be censuring him too hardly.