Durant did not notice the gentle interference in the Rector’s case, but he felt it very distinctly in his own, and with a little pang said to himself, that he would give no occasion for this watchfulness, but would shorten his proposed stay as he had already intended to do. This was not because there was any failure of the kindness, even the affection with which he had been first received. Lady Curtis talked to him as she did to nobody else but Lucy, confided in him--called him Lewis, as she had done when he arrived, and discussed her son with him, with family freedom and trust, in a manner indeed which would have filled many young men with fond imaginations and made them feel themselves almost wooed. And Sir John was quite kind, though in a different way. He had always been slightly suspicious of Durant as one of those clever men who are never quite safe, and of whom you cannot be too sure what levelling and atheistical sentiments may accompany their intellectual gifts. One of my Lady’s sort of people, Sir John had always considered him, not a retainer of his own, but on the other side; yet because he was so associated with Arthur, Sir John’s heart had melted to him also. So that it was no failure of the most cordial welcome which made Durant feel it better to hasten away. He went to his room that night quite decided by the manner of the woman who called him by his Christian name, and looked at him with such motherly affection in her eyes. Was it Lady Curtis’s fault? He did not blame her. He said to himself, that had Lucy been his own sister, he would not have given her to a poor barrister without family, without connections, with burdens of his own upon his shoulders, and no honours to bestow. Why should he linger there? Now that Arthur was so far off from Oakley--now, above all, that Arthur was _married_, the most complete of severing influences, it was inevitable (he said) that his connection with Oakley must gradually drop off. They would not mean it--they would not wish it--yet it would come to pass; and why should he seek to prevent it? Was there not between them a great gulf fixed--that gulf which wealth might fill up, perhaps, which his old grandfather’s money might have thrown a golden bridge across, had it still existed; but which now gaped like the bottomless pit, and could never be crossed by any skill or effort of his. Should he stay only to impress this more and more upon himself? He made up his mind that very night.