And on what other terms could she possibly have been with him? he asked himself. And what had she to do with his quarrels? ‘I must be going off my head!’ said Michael to himself, lifting off his hat, to let the air cool his forehead. After all, he realised, when he had had a little time in which to let his ideas adjust themselves, the fear which had seized upon his innermost soul and dismayed it was, not lest Eleanor should be attracted by Gilbert, but lest Gilbert should be attracted by Eleanor. That which caused him to be dismayed by this prospect was the knowledge that if such a thing were to happen—if Gilbert should love her, and be pleased to tell her so, and to make any claim for her, he had a great deal of power. He literally held her brother’s fortunes in the hollow of his hand. If he could not altogether repair the ravages Otho had made in his estate, he could finish the matter at his pleasure, and make a complete ruin of what as yet was but a badly damaged property. If it should ever come to pass that he wished to marry Eleanor, and she should not wish to marry him, he could make her life miserable to her, if he chose, through the injuries which he could inflict upon her brother. And, then, supposing she should care for him! Michael found himself breathing harder and riding faster as this possibility entered his mind, but he forced himself to face it. Should she ever ‘care for’ Gilbert, there was nothing to prevent, but everything to urge a marriage between them. And after all, why should she not care for him? She had been far away, and all unwitting the circumstances, when Gilbert’s sin had been committed; and if he had sinned basely and blackly, once, he had by his sin got what he aimed at; he had bought with it the means and the power to be honest for all the rest of his life. Not every one, reflected Michael, could boast so much. Thoughts like these did not form a soothing accompaniment to his ride. He angrily asked himself what it was to him, supposing she and Gilbert chose to be married next week? He had no answer to that, but only the consciousness that it would be a great deal to him; unhappiness which he preferred not to contemplate. Reason told him that his thoughts were extravagant and exaggerated—that he had imagined without a cause the extremest possibilities of a given (imaginary) situation. Something else, though, importunately said that though they might be extreme possibilities, yet that they distinctly were possibilities. He set his teeth, and told himself in effect, if not in so many words, that he was not ‘going to be made a fool of again by that set.’ And if, by some unaccountable means, Eleanor Askam had become an object of so much importance in his mind, the best thing to do now would be to be hard, and root her out at once;—hard to himself, of course—not to her.