Poor Evelyn learned from her father the outline of the story of her beloved brother’s crime and disgrace, and finding her own urgent entreaties of no avail, she hastily despatched a letter to the Rectory, to entreat Mr. Elthorne to visit her father, and try to dissuade him from any rash course. The Rector, in great distress of mind--for he loved and valued the boy--came at once, but he altogether failed to dissuade the Squire from the course on which he had already determined. Mr. Manwaring was in many respects a weak man, but, like most weak men, he was as obstinate as a mule. If it was long before he could come to any definite decision at all, yet, when he had once formed it, he deemed that it was as irreversible as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and it was next to impossible to turn him from it. So it proved on the present occasion. Mr. Elthorne found the Squire as hard as adamant. As the old and trusted friend of the family, and as the Parish Priest, he tried to shake his determination, but he tried in vain. In vain he pointed out the injustice of precipitation. In vain he prayed the Squire to adopt mild measures towards his son, who, after all, might not be guilty, and who, even _if_ guilty, might, by kindness and love, be won back to repentance and virtue. In vain he set before the Squire the duty of keeping a place in the fold for the strayed sheep; a seat by the old familiar home-hearth for the returning prodigal, if such he were. In vain he pointed out that that “Gospel within a Gospel,” the Parable of the Prodigal Son, had a double application, and held up to view, for the imitation of his chief parishioner, the Majestic Figure of the Father running forward with the outstretched arms of Divine Mercy to embrace him who, lost in the mazes of sin, had resolved to arise and return to his home. In vain, in vain; for that tender parable had, for that wretched father, been spoken to no purpose! At length Mr. Elthorne was stirred to strong indignation, and sternly rebuked the obstinate old man. “I warn you,” he said, as he took his leave, “that you are about to commit a sin against God and against your own son. You are resolved to sacrifice the living to the dead. Who are you, that you dare to withhold forgiveness from another, and _that_ one your own flesh and blood? ‘Vengeance is Mine,’ saith God; ‘I will repay.’ And know this, proud man, that if it were to please God to strike you down in this revengeful frame of mind, my hands would refuse to administer to you the Blessed Sacrament to soothe your dying hours!” And so Mr. Elthorne left the house, after a short interview with Evelyn, in which he assured her of his entire belief in Wilfred’s innocence.