That Miss Culpepper was engaged to young Cope he knew quite well. But Tom Bristow was not a man to set much store by such an engagement. He felt, instinctively as it were, that Jane had drifted into her present position almost unconsciously and without being sure of her own feelings in the matter. That Edward Cope was quite unworthy of being her husband he had no manner of doubt: who, indeed, was worthy of holding that position? Not much less doubt had he as to the real state of Jane’s feelings toward the banker’s son; and holding, as he did, that all is fair in love and war, he would have seen Mr. Edward Cope jilted, and he himself installed in his place, without the slightest feeling of compunction. “He’s an unmitigated cad,” said Tom to himself. “He’s altogether incapable of appreciating a girl like Jane.” This, reversing the point of view, was exactly Edward Cope’s own opinion. In his belief it was he who was the unappreciated one. But a far more serious impediment than any offered by Jane’s engagement to young Cope lay before Tom, like a rock ahead from which there was no escape. He knew quite well that unless some special miracle should be worked in his behalf, it was altogether hopeless to expect that the Squire would ever consent to a marriage between himself and Jane; and that any special miracle would be so worked he had very little faith indeed. He knew how full of prejudices the Squire was; and, notwithstanding his bonhomie and rough frankness of manner, how securely wrapped round he was with the trammels of caste. He knew, too, that had the Squire not owed his life in years gone by to Mr. Cope’s bravery, from which act had sprung their warm friendship of many years, not even to the son of a rich banker would Titus Culpepper, the proud commoner, who could trace back his family for ten hundred years, have ever consented to give his daughter. While as for himself, he, Tom Bristow, however rich he might one day perhaps become, would never be anything more in Mr. Culpepper’s eyes than the son of a poor country doctor, and, consequently, to a man of old family, a mere nobody—a person who by no stretch of imagination could ever be looked upon in the light of a family connection. And yet, being in possession of all this bitter knowledge, Tom Bristow made no really determined effort to break away, and to try the cure which is said to be often wrought by time and absence even in cases as desperate as his. Metaphorically speaking, he hugged the shackles that bound him, and gloried in the loss of his freedom: a very sad condition, indeed, for any reasonable being to fall into.