“Nothing shall induce me!” he said, and his voice was harsh and strong, as though he spoke for something bigger than himself. “I've thought it over all the morning, and I'm d---d if I do! The man is a ruffian. I won't knuckle under to him!” Mrs. Pendyce clasped her hands. “Oh, Horace,” she said; “but for the sake of us all! Only just give him that assurance.” “And let him crow over me!” cried the Squire. “By Jove, no!” “But, Horace, I thought that was what you wanted George to do. You wrote to him and asked him to promise.” The Squire answered: “You know nothing about it, Margery; you know nothing about me. D'you think I'm going to tell him that his wife has thrown my son over--let him keep me gasping like a fish all this time, and then get the best of it in the end? Not if I have to leave the county--not if I----” But, as though he had imagined the most bitter fate of all, he stopped. Mrs. Pendyce, putting her hands on the lapels of his coat, stood with her head bent. The colour had gushed into her cheeks, her eyes were bright with tears. And there came from her in her emotion a warmth and fragrance, a charm, as though she were again young, like the portrait under which they stood. “Not if I ask you, Horace?” The Squire's face was suffused with dusky colour; he clenched his hands and seemed to sway and hesitate. “No, Margery,” he said hoarsely; “it's--it's--I can't!” And, breaking away from her, he left the room. Mrs. Pendyce looked after him; her fingers, from which he had torn his coat, began twining the one with the other. CHAPTER IX BELLEW BOWS TO A LADY There was silence at the Firs, and in that silent house, where only five rooms were used, an old manservant sat in his pantry on a wooden chair, reading from an article out of Rural Life. There was no one to disturb him, for the master was asleep, and the housekeeper had not yet come to cook the dinner. He read slowly, through spectacles, engraving the words for ever on the tablets of his mind. He read about the construction and habits of the owl: “In the tawny, or brown, owl there is a manubrial process; the furcula, far from being joined to the keel of the sternum, consists of two stylets, which do not even meet; while the posterior margin of the sternum presents two pairs of projections, with corresponding fissures between.” The old manservant paused, resting his blinking eyes on the pale sunlight through the bars of his narrow window, so that a little bird on the window-sill looked at him and instantly flew away. The old manservant read on again: “The pterylological characters of Photodilus seem not to have been investigated, but it has been found to want the tarsal loop, as well as the manubrial process, while its clavicles are not joined in a furcula, nor do they meet the keel, and the posterior margin of the sternum has processes and fissures like the tawny section.” Again he paused, and his gaze was satisfied and bland.