"I rather think not. I fancy he has made himself too free with her, and has offended her. However, there he is shut up all alone, and swearing that he won't stir out of the house till something better is done for him." There were two matters now on Lord Hampstead's mind to which he gave his attention, the latter of which, however, was much the more prominent in his thoughts. He was anxious to take his sister down to Gorse Hall, and there remain for the rest of the hunting season, making such short runs up to Holloway as he might from time to time find to be necessary. No man can have a string of hunters idle through the winter without feeling himself to be guilty of an unpardonable waste of property. A customer at an eating-house will sometimes be seen to devour the last fragments of what has been brought to him, because he does not like to abandon that for which he must pay. So it is with the man who hunts. It is not perhaps that he wants to hunt. There are other employments in life which would at the moment be more to his taste. It is his conscience which prompts him,--the feeling that he cannot forgive himself for intolerable extravagance if he does not use the articles with which he has provided himself. You can neglect your billiard-table, your books, or even your wine-cellar,--because they eat nothing. But your horses soon eat their heads off their own shoulders if you pass weeks without getting on their backs. Hampstead had endeavoured to mitigate for himself this feeling of improvidence by running up and down to Aylesbury; but the saving in this respect was not sufficient for his conscience, and he was therefore determined to balance the expenditure of the year by a regular performance of his duties at Gorse Hall. But the other matter was still more important to him. He must see Marion Fay before he went into Northamptonshire, and then he would learn how soon he might run up with the prospect of seeing her again. The distance of Gorse Hall and the duty of hunting would admit of certain visits to Holloway. "I think I shall go to Gorse Hall to-morrow," he said to his sister as soon as he had come down from his room. "All right; I shall be ready. Hendon Hall or Gorse Hall,--or any other Hall, will be the same to me now." Whereby she probably intended to signify that as George Roden was on his way to Italy all parts of England were indifferent to her. "But I am not quite certain," said he. "What makes the doubt?" "Holloway, you know, has not been altogether deserted. The sun no doubt has set in Paradise Row, but the moon remains." At this she could only laugh, while he prepared himself for his excursion to Holloway.