‘It might be dangerous for another man,’ he said to himself, ‘but I’ve had my lesson. No more fair soft beauties for me. If ever I suffer myself to fall in love again it shall be with a girl who looks as if she could knock me down if I offended her. A girl with as much character in her face as that actress poor James was so fond of. Of the two I think I would rather have Clytemnestra than Helen. I dare say Menelaus believed his wife a pattern of innocence and purity till he woke one morning and found she had levanted with Paris.’ Thus secure from the influence of her attractions Mr. Clissold made himself very much at home with Miss Bellingham. She showed him all the beauties of Penwyn, spots where a glimpse of the sea looked brightest through a break in the pine grove, hollows where the ferns grew deepest and greenest, and proved a very different guide from Elspeth. ‘I have been through the grounds before,’ said Maurice, ‘but on that occasion my companion did not enhance the beauties of nature by the charm of her society.’ ‘Who was your companion?’ ‘The granddaughter of the woman at the Lodge. Rather curious people, are they not?’ ‘Yes, I have often wondered how my brother came to pick them up, for they are not natives of the soil, as almost every one else is at Penwyn. But Churchill says the old woman is a very estimable person, well worthy of her post, so one can say no more about it.’ When Maurice wanted to take leave, his new friends insisted that he should stay to dinner, Mr. Penwyn offering to send him home in a dog-cart. This favour, however, the sturdy pedestrian steadfastly declined. ‘I am not afraid of a night walk across the hills,’ he said, ‘and am getting as familiar with the country about here as if I were to the manner born.’ So he stayed, and assisted at Mrs. Penwyn’s kettledrum, which was held in the old Squire’s yewtree bower on the bowling-green, an arbour made of dense walls of evergreen, cool in summer, and comfortably sheltered in winter. Here they drank tea, lazily enjoying the freshening breeze from the great wide sea, the sea which counts so many argosies for her spoil, the mighty Atlantic! Here they talked of literature and the world, and rapidly progressed in friendliness. But not one word was said of James Penwyn, who, save for that shot fired from behind a hedge, would have been master of grounds and bower, manor and all thereto belonging. That was a thought which flashed more than once across Maurice’s mind. ‘How happy these people seem in the possession of a dead man’s goods!’ he thought, ‘how placidly they enjoy his belongings, how coolly they accept fate’s awful decree! Only human nature I suppose.’ ‘“Les morts durent bien peu, laissons les sous la pierre.”’ He stayed till ten o’clock, and left charmed with host and hostess.