They all went away after a little more talk, Kenrick in a bad temper. This was like his welcome at Southampton, when, with a heart burning with eager love, he had found only coldness and restraint in his betrothed. She had been kinder, and had even seemed happy in his society of late; but there had been moments of coldness, days on which she had been absent-minded and fitful. ‘I am a fool to love her as I do,’ he thought, as he walked silently back to the Vicarage, while Mr. Dulcimer chewed the cud of his afternoon readings, and debated within himself the motive of Ovid’s exile--a favourite subject of meditation with him, as being a key-note to the domestic history of Augustus, and a social mystery upon which a man might muse and argue for ever without coming any nearer an absolute conclusion. ‘I am a fool to make myself miserable about her,’ mused Kenrick. ‘Why cannot I think of my marriage as a mere matter of convenience--the salvation of a fine old estate--as other people do?’ The tea party at the Vicarage had not been lively. Cyril looked ill, and had little to say for himself. ‘You are overworked at Bridford,’ said the Vicar, decisively. ‘The place is killing you. I must have you back here, Cyril. There is quite work enough to be done, and you may indulge in your new-fangled ways as much as you like, for I know you are too sensible to consider outward fripperies an essential part of an earnest service. You shall do what you like with the choir, and have as many services at unearthly hours of the morning as you please. But you shall not kill yourself in that polluted town.’ ‘I am more useful there than I could ever be here,’ urged Cyril. ‘But you will be no use anywhere when you are dead. A living dog, you know, is of more value in the world than a dead lion. If you go on doing the lion’s work yonder you will soon be in the condition of the dead lion, and of less use than the most insignificant live dog. They would stuff you and put you in a glass case, no doubt--or rather they would subscribe for a handsome tablet in the parish church, setting out your virtues--but the tablet would be useful to no one.’ ‘Your argument is forcible,’ said Cyril. ‘If I find myself really breaking down at Bridford I will ask you to let me come back to my work here.’ ‘Be sure you do.’ The cousins were not alone together during any part of the evening. It was between ten and eleven o’clock when the Vicar and Kenrick returned from the Water House, and they found Mrs. Dulcimer alone in the library. ‘Poor Cyril was tired after his journey,’ she said, ‘and I persuaded him to go to bed half an hour ago. Oh, Clement, I never saw such a change in any young man. I’m afraid he’s going into a decline.’