"Yes, I will tell her," answered Rupert, "and thank you very much for your kindness. Don't come out with me pray," he added,--which was an utterly unnecessary entreaty as Mr. Dean had no intention of doing so. "I can find my way quite well. Good-night," and he went. But when he had reached the middle of the hall, he paused, and drew a long deep breath. "If I were in Antonia's place," he murmured, "sooner than marry that self-sufficient cad, I would go down to the Lea and drown myself, or else take poison." Rupert really felt at the minute what he said, but the worst of it was that such minutes never, in the young man's nature, lengthened themselves into hours. CHAPTER VI. MR. GIBBONS' OPINION ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS. Furnished by Rigby with his coat and hat, assisted by that personage to put on his knickerbockers, Mr. Rupert Halling stood at the hall door waiting for Madam Bess to be brought round. He had wished to mount in the stable-yard, but neither Housden nor Rigby would hear of such a thing. "Well, it is coming down," ejaculated the butler; "Mr. Halling, sir, why don't you send the mare back to her comfortable stall, and stay here for the night." "I do not mind the weather," answered Rupert, which was fortunate, for the rain was pouring in such torrents that the noise made by the mare's hoofs was inaudible through the rushing tempest, and it was only by help of the ostler's lanthorn that Rupert could tell where Bess stood shivering and cringing, as the drops pelted like hail-stones upon her. But if the night had been ten times worse than was the case, Rupert would still have persisted in his intention of riding round by Leytonstone. Comfort and assurance he felt he must have, some accurate knowledge of their actual position he was determined to obtain for Dolly, and so he proceeded through the darkness, with the rain sweeping in gusts up from the south-east, and expending the full force of its fury upon horse and horseman wherever an opening in the forest glades exposed both to its violence. A lonely ride, lonely and dreary, the road now winding through common lands covered with gorse, and broom and heather, now leading through patches of the forest, now skirting gravel and sand pits, and again passing by skeletons of new houses run up hastily and prematurely by speculative builders. And wherever any other road which could possibly lead back to Homewood crossed that Rupert desired to pursue, a difference of opinion took place between him and Bess, she being quite satisfied that the way they ought to go was the way which led to her stable; Rupert, on the contrary, being quite determined that she should carry him to Leytonstone.