There was great consternation in the attorney\'s house after the writing of the letter to Lawrence Twentyman. For twenty-four hours Mrs. Masters did not speak to Mary, not at all intending to let her sin pass with such moderate punishment as that, but thinking during that period that as she might perhaps induce Larry to ignore the letter and look upon it as though it were not written, it would be best to say nothing till the time should come in which the lover might again urge his suit. But when she found on the evening of the second day that Larry did not come near the place she could control herself no longer, and accused her step-daughter of ruining herself, her father, and the whole family. "That is very unfair, mamma," Mary said. "I have done nothing. I have only not done that which nobody had a right to ask me to do."

"Right indeed! And who are you with your rights? A decent well-behaved young man with five or six hundred a year has no right to ask you to be his wife! All this comes of you staying with an old woman with a handle to her name."

It was in vain that Mary endeavoured to explain that she had not alluded to Larry when she declared that no one had a right to ask her to do it. She had, she said, always thanked him for his good opinion of her, and had spoken well of him whenever his name was mentioned. But it was a matter on which a young woman was entitled to judge for herself, and no one had a right to scold her because she could not love him. Mrs. Masters hated such arguments, despised this rodomontade about love, and would have crushed the girl into obedience could it have been possible. "You are an idiot," she said, "an ungrateful idiot; and unless you think better of it you\'ll repent your folly to your dying day. Who do you think is to come running after a moping slut like you?" Then Mary gathered herself up and left the room, feeling that she could not live in the house if she were to be called a slut.

Soon after this Larry came to the attorney and got him to come out into the street and to walk with him round the churchyard. It was the spot in Dillsborough in which they would most certainly be left undisturbed. This took place on the day before his proposition for the sale of Chowton Farm. When he got the attorney into the churchyard he took out Mary\'s letter and in speechless agony handed it to the attorney. "I saw it before it went," said Masters putting it back with his hand.

"I suppose she means it?" asked Larry.

"I can\'t say to you but what she does, Twentyman. As far as I know her she isn\'t a girl that would ever say anything that she didn\'t mean."

"I was sure of that. When I got it and read it, it was just as though some one had come behind me and hit me over the head with a wheel-spoke. I couldn\'t have ate a morsel of breakfast if I knew I wasn\'t to see another bit of food for four-and-twenty hours."

"I knew you would feel it, Larry."

"Feel it! Till it came to this I didn\'t think of myself but what I had more strength. It has knocked me about till I feel all over like drinking."

"Don\'t do that, Larry."

"I won\'t answer for myself what I\'ll do. A man sets his heart on a thing,—just on one thing,—and has grit enough in him to be sure of himself that if he can get that nothing shall knock him over. When that thoroughbred mare of mine slipped her foal who can say I ever whimpered. When I got pleuro among the cattle I killed a\'most the lot of \'em out of hand, and never laid awake a night about it. But I\'ve got it so heavy this time I can\'t stand it. You don\'t think I have any chance, Mr. Masters?"

"You can try of course. You\'re welcome to the house."

"But what do you think? You must know her."

"Girls do change their minds."

"But she isn\'t like other girls. Is she now? I come to you because I sometimes think Mrs. Masters is a little hard on her. Mrs. Masters is about the best friend I have. There isn\'t anybody more on my side than she is. But I feel sure of this;—Mary will never be drove."

"I don\'t think she will, Larry."

"She\'s got a will of her own as well as another."

"No man alive ever had a better daughter."

"I\'m sure of that, Mr. Masters; and no man alive \'ll ever have a better wife. But she won\'t be drove. I might ask her again, you think?"

"You certainly have my leave."

"But would it be any good? I\'d rather cut my throat and have done with it than go about teasing her because her parents let me come to her." Then there was a pause during which they walked on, the attorney feeling that he had nothing more to say. "What I want to know," said Larry, "is this. Is there anybody else?"

That was just the point on which the attorney himself was perplexed. He had asked Mary that question, and her silence had assured him that it was so. Then he had suggested to her the name of the only probable suitor that occurred to him, and she had repelled the idea in a manner that had convinced him at once. There was some one, but Mr. Surtees was not the man. There was some one, he was sure, but he had not been able to cross-examine her on the subject. He had, since that, cudgelled his brain to think who that some one might be, but had not succeeded in suggesting a name even to himself. That of Reginald Morton, who hardly ever came to the house and whom he regarded as a silent, severe, unapproachable man, did not come into his mind. Among the young ladies of Dillsborough Reginald Morton was never regarded as even a possible lover. And yet there was assuredly some one. "If there is any one else I think you ought to tell me," continued Larry.

"It is quite possible."

"Young Surtees, I suppose."

"I do not say there is anybody; but if there be anybody I do not think it is Surtees."

"Who else then?"

"I cannot say, Larry. I know nothing about it."

"But there is some one?"

"I do not say so. You ask me and I tell you all I know."

Again they walked round the churchyard in silence and the attorney began to be anxious that the interview might be over. He hardly liked to be interrogated about the state of his daughter\'s heart, and yet he had felt himself bound to tell what he knew to the man who had in all respects behaved well to him. When they had returned for the third or fourth time to the gate by which they had entered Larry spoke again. "I suppose I may as well give it up."

"What can I say?"

"You have been fair enough, Mr. Masters. And so has she. And so has everybody. I shall just get away as quick as I can, and go and hang myself. I feel above bothering her any more. When she sat down to write a letter like that she must have been in earnest."

"She certainly was in earnest, Larry."

"What\'s the use of going on after that? Only it is so hard for a fellow to feel that everything is gone. It is just as though the house was burnt down, or I was to wake in the morning and find that the land didn\'t belong to me."

"Not so bad as that, Larry."

"Not so bad, Mr. Masters! Then you don\'t know what it is I\'m feeling. I\'d let his lordship or Squire Morton have it all, and go in upon it as a tenant at 30s. an acre, so that I could take her along with me. I would, and sell the horses and set to and work in my shirt-sleeves. A man could stand that. Nobody wouldn\'t laugh at me then. But there\'s an emptiness now here that makes me sick all through, as though I hadn\'t got stomach left for anything." Then poor Larry put his hand upon his heart and hid his face upon the churchyard wall. The attorney made some attempt to say a kind word to him, and then, leaving him there, slowly made his ............