conversational powers—­all these are unquestionable merits, and all these he certainly possesses.  Surely Mr. Gilmore, ignorant as he is of Laura’s secret, was not to blame for feeling surprised that she should repent of her marriage engagement?  Any one else in his place would have shared our good old friend’s opinion.  If I were asked, at this moment, to say plainly what defects I have discovered in Sir Percival, I could only point out two.  One, his incessant restlessness and excitability—­which may be caused, naturally enough, by unusual energy of character.  The other, his short, sharp, ill-tempered manner of speaking to the servants—­ which may be only a bad habit after all.  No, I cannot dispute it, and I will not dispute it—­Sir Percival is a very handsome and a very agreeable man.  There!  I have written it down at last, and I am glad it’s over.

18th.—­Feeling weary and depressed this morning, I left Laura with Mrs. Vesey, and went out alone for one of my brisk midday walks, which I have discontinued too much of late.  I took the dry airy road over the moor that leads to Todd’s Corner.  After having been out half an hour, I was excessively surprised to see Sir Percival approaching me from the direction of the farm.  He was walking rapidly, swinging his stick, his head erect as usual, and his shooting jacket flying open in the wind.  When we met he did not wait for me to ask any questions—­he told me at once that he had been to the farm to inquire if Mr. or Mrs. Todd had received any tidings, since his last visit to Limmeridge, of Anne Catherick.

“You found, of course, that they had heard nothing?” I said.

“Nothing whatever,” he replied.  “I begin to be seriously afraid that we have lost her.  Do you happen to know,” he continued, looking me in the face very attentively “if the artist—­Mr. Hartright—­is in a position to give us any further information?”

“He has neither heard of her, nor seen her, since he left Cumberland,” I answered.

“Very sad,” said Sir Percival, speaking like a man who was disappointed, and yet, oddly enough, looking at the same time like a man who was relieved.  “It is impossible to say what misfortunes may not have happened to the miserable creature.  I am inexpressibly annoyed at the failure of all my efforts to restore her to the care and protection which she so urgently needs.”

This time he really looked annoyed.  I said a few sympathising words, and we then talked of other subjects on our way back to the house.  Surely my chance meeting with him on the moor has disclosed another favourable trait in his character?  Surely it was singularly considerate and unselfish of him to think of Anne Catherick on the eve of his marriage, and to go all the way to Todd’s Corner to make inquiries about her, when he might have passed the time so much more agreeably in Laura’s society?  Considering that he can only have acted from motives of pure charity, his conduct, under the circumstances, shows unusual good feeling and deserves extraordinary praise.  Well!  I give him extraordinary praise—­and there’s an end of it.