It was late in the evening of the Tuesday succeeding the skating expedition to Ayclough when Captain Chancellor reached Winsley Grange, so late that the only person awake to receive him was a sleepy footman charged with his mistress's apologies for not having sat up to welcome her brother in person. Beauchamp received the apologies with philosophy, for he was not sorry to defer seeing Mrs Eyrecourt till the next day; he was tired and not quite as comfortable and complacent as usual, and Gertrude's eyes were dreadfully keen. Then there was Roma too. He had been preparing himself to meet them both, but it was a relief to find he should have a few hours to himself first; he wanted to think things over a little, quietly; he wanted quite thoroughly to satisfy himself of the truth of what he had many times already repeated to himself--that he had certainly acted for the best. Yes, there could be no doubt that he had done so, he decided, as he sat with his pipe by the fire, after declining the sleepy footman's offers of "getting him anything"--he had dined in town on his way--he was very well out of it; it wasn't every man that would have had the strength of mind to cut it short decisively just as a crisis was approaching, for, no doubt, he confessed to himself he _had_ been hit, just the least in the world. She, too, would very soon be all right again, poor little soul; and by some curious code of morality of his own, the reflection that the tools with which he had been playing had scratched _him_, though it might be but slightly, greatly lessened the discomfort of the half-acknowledged suspicion that they had cut _her_ deeply.