With the departure of Lionel Dering from Pincote in disguise, and the subsequent removal of Edith and Mrs. Garside to London, it would naturally have been thought that Mr. Tom Bristow\'s business in Duxley was at an end, that he would have bidden the quiet little country town a long farewell, and have hastened back gladly to the busier haunts of men. But such was not the case. He still kept on his lodgings in Duxley. Although he had given notice to leave them three or four times, when the day came for him to go he had always renewed his tenancy for another short term; and he still lingered on in a vague, purposeless sort of way, altogether unusual in one who rather prided himself on his decisive and business-like mode of conducting the affairs of his everyday life.
Truth to tell, he could not make up his mind to sever the thread of connection which bound him to Miss Culpepper; which, frail though it might be, still continued to hold together; and would, in all probability, so hold as long as he chose to remain at Duxley, but which must inevitably be broken for ever the moment he and his portmanteau bade a final farewell to the pleasant little town. And yet, what folly, what wild infatuation, it was! as he said to himself a score of times a day. There was not the remotest prospect of his being able to win Jane Culpepper for his wife--at least, not during the lifetime of her father. He had read his own heart and feelings by this time, and he knew that he loved her. He knew that he, the cool, calculating man of business, the shrewd speculator, who had never been overmuch inclined to believe in the romance of love; who had often declared that if he ever were to marry it would be for money and money only; he who had walked unscathed under the flashing fire of a thousand feminine eyes, had succumbed at last, like the most weak-minded of mortals, to the charms of a country-bred squire\'s daughter, who was neither very beautiful, very wise, very witty, nor, as he believed, very rich.
Yes, he certainly loved her. He owned that to himself now. He knew, too, that he couldn\'t help himself, and that, however foolish his passion might be, he could not bear to break himself away from it entirely, as he ought to have done, and put two hundred miles of distance between himself and her. He preferred to still linger on in love\'s pleasant paradise. Not with his own hands would he consent to shut the golden gates that would bar him for ever from that sunny precinct.
That Miss Culpepper was engaged to young Cope he knew quite well. But Tom Bristow was not a man to set much store by such an engagement. He felt, instinctively as it were, that Jane had drifted into her present position almost unconsciously and without being sure of her own feelings in the matter. That Edward Cope was quite unworthy of being her husband he had no manner of doubt: who, indeed, was worthy of holding that position? Not much less doubt had he as to the real state of Jane\'s feelings toward the banker\'s son; and holding, as he did, that all is fair in love and war, he would have seen Mr. Edward Cope jilted, and he himself installed in his place, without the slightest feeling of compunction.
"He\'s an unmitigated cad," said Tom to himself. "He\'s altogether incapable of appreciating a girl like Jane." This, reversing the point of view, was exactly Edward Cope\'s own opinion. In his belief it was he who was the unappreciated one.
But a far more serious impediment than any offered by Jane\'s engagement to young Cope lay before Tom, like a rock ahead from which there was no escape. He knew quite well that unless some special miracle should be worked in his behalf, it was altogether hopeless to expect that the Squire would ever consent to a marriage between himself and Jane; and that any special miracle would be so worked he had very little faith indeed. He knew how full of prejudices the Squire was; and, notwithstanding his bonhomie and rough frankness of manner, how securely wrapped round he was with the trammels of caste. He knew, too, that had the Squire not owed his life in years gone by to Mr. Cope\'s bravery, from which act had sprung their warm friendship of many years, not even to the son of a rich banker would Titus Culpepper, the proud commoner, who could trace back his family for ten hundred years, have ever consented to give his daughter. While as for himself, he, Tom Bristow, however rich he might one day perhaps become, would never be anything more in Mr. Culpepper\'s eyes than the son of a poor country doctor, and, consequently, to a man of old family, a mere nobody--a person who by no stretch of imagination could ever be looked upon in the light of a family connection.
And yet, being in possession of all this bitter knowledge, Tom Bristow made no really determined effort to break away, and to try the cure which is said to be often wrought by time and absence even in cases as desperate as his. Metaphorically speaking, he hugged the shackles that bound him, and gloried in the loss of his freedom: a very sad condition, indeed, for any reasonable being to fall into.
It was curious what a number of opportunities Tom and Jane seemed to find for seeing each other, and how often they found themselves together, quite fortuitously as it were, and without any apparent volition of their own in the matter. Sometimes Tom would be mooning about the High Street in the middle of the forenoon at the very time that the Pincote pony-carriage drew up against one or another of the shops, and then what more natural than that Jane and he should have three minutes\' conversation together on the pavement? Sometimes Jane would walk into Merton\'s library at the very moment that Tom was critically choosing a novel which, when borrowed, he would carefully omit to read. How quickly half an hour--nay an hour--would pass at such times, and that in conversation of the most commonplace kind!
Sometimes Jane, wandering absently with a book in her hands, through the Pincote woods and meadows, would find herself, after a time, on the banks of the carefully preserved stream--river it could hardly be called--which wandered at its own sweet will through Squire Culpepper\'s demesne. There, strange to relate, she would find Mr. Bristow whipping the stream; very inartistically it must be admitted; but trying his best to make believe that he was a very skilful angler indeed.
What wings the sunny minutes put themselves on at such times! How quickly the yellow afternoons faded and waned, and Jane would look round at last, quite startled to find that twilight had come already. Then Tom would accompany her part of the way back towards the house, his fishing-basket empty indeed, but his heart overbrimming wit............