Horace looked round to see how the attack was received--at Aunt Harriet, who was wiping away the quick coming tears; at Hardwicke, who was looking at the door through which Percival had vanished; at Hammond, who came forward a step or two. "I ordered a dog-cart to come over from Fordborough for me," he said. "If you will allow me I will ring and have it brought round." "You are going?" said Horace. "We shall just catch the four-o'clock train very comfortably if we go now," Godfrey replied. "Thorne will prefer going by that." "I see: you take his part. Very well. I suppose sooner or later you must choose between us: as well now as later." Horace rang the bell. "Horace," said Hammond, dropping his voice, yet speaking in the same tone of authority he had used once before that day, "for the first time in your life Mrs. Middleton is your guest. If you have a spark of right feeling--and you have more than that--you will not make her position here more painful than it must be. We will defer all discussion: there _must_ be a truce while she is here.--My dog-cart," he said over his shoulder to the servant. "It was to come from Fordborough. At once.--Keep out of the way ten minutes hence when your cousin goes," he added to Horace: "it will be best." The young squire bent his head in sulky acquiescence. "I shall take Percival with me," said Hammond to Mrs. Middleton as he went by. "He wants to be off, I know, and I shall be of more use with him than here." He found Percival crushing his things into his little portmanteau and in hot haste to get away from Brackenhill. "I'm going by the four train," Hammond remarked, "and I've told them you'll drive with me." "In one of _his_ carriages?" said young Thorne, looking up with furious eyes. "No, thank you: I'll walk." "If you jumped out of that window you wouldn't have to go down his staircase," said Hammond. "Oh, if you came here to--" began the young man, tugging at a strap. "I came here to ask you to drive with me in the dog-cart from the Crown. It's no use pulling a strap _much_ past the tightest hole. Come, you are not going to quarrel with me?" "I'm a fool," said Percival. "I shall feel it all in a minute or two, I suppose. Just now I only feel that everything belongs to the man who has duped me, and every breath I draw is choking me." "I understand," returned Hammond. "Percival, Mrs. Middleton is coming: I hear her step. For her sake--to-day--Thorne, you will not break her heart?" The old lady was knocking at the half-open door. "Come in," said Percival in a gentle voice. His portmanteau was strapped, and he rose as she entered. "Come to say good-bye to me, Aunt Harriet? I'm off, you see." "Oh, Percival, I can't understand it!" she exclaimed. "Horace married--_married_! And you going away like this! It is like a dream." "So it seems to me," said the young man.