"You give me credit for a strength I do not possess, Mr. Cardew. I said 'unattainable.' That was all. I did not say how." They had come to a gate which led out of the field into the road, and they paused there. They leaned against the gate, and Mr. Cardew, although his arm was withdrawn from Catharine's, had placed it upon the top rail so that she felt it. The pressure would not have moved an ounce weight; there were half a dozen thicknesses of wool and linen between the arm and her shoulder, but the encircling touch sent a quiver through every nerve in her and shook her like electricity. She stood gazing on the ground, digging up the blades of grass with her foot. "Do you mean," said Mr. Cardew, "that you have ever seen him, and that--" The pressure behind her was a little more obvious; he bent his head nearer to hers, looked in her face, and she leaned back on the arm heavily. Suddenly, without a word, she put both her hands to her head, pushed aside her hair, and stood upright as a spear. "Good-bye," she said, with her eyes straight on his. Another second and she had passed through the gate, and was walking fast along the road homewards alone. She heard behind her the sound of wheels, and an open carriage overtook her. It was Dr. Turnbull's, and of course he stopped. "Miss Furze, you are taking a long walk." She told him she had been to see Phoebe, and of her death. "You must be very tired: you must come with me." She would have preferred solitude, but he insisted on her accompanying him, and she consented. "I believe I saw Mr. Cardew in the meadow: I have just called on his wife." "Is she ill?" "Yes, not seriously, I hope. You know Mr. Cardew?" "Yes, a little. I have heard him preach, and have been to his house when I was living at Abchurch." "A remarkable man in many ways, and yet not a man whom I much admire. He thinks a good deal, and when I am in company with him I am unaccountably stimulated, but his thinking is not directed upon life. My notion is that our intellect is intended to solve real difficulties which confront us, and that all intellectual exercise upon what does not concern us is worse than foolish. My brain finds quite enough to do in contriving how to remove actual hard obstacles which lie in the way of other people's happiness and my own." "His difficulties may be different from yours."