SPEID rode home without seeing a step of the way, though he never put his horse out of a walk; he was like a man inheriting a fortune which has vanished before he has had time to do more than sign his name to the document that makes it his. But, in spite of the misery of their parting, he could not and would not realize that it was final. He was hot and tingling with the determination to wear down Lady Eliza’s opposition; for he had decided, with Cecilia’s concurrence or without it, to see her himself, and to do what he could to bring home to her the ruin she was making of two lives. He could not find any justice in her standpoint; if she had refused to admit him to her house or her acquaintance, there might have been some reason in her act, but she had acknowledged him as a neighbour, invited him to Morphie, and had at times been on the verge of friendliness. She knew that, in spite of any talk that was afloat, he had been well received by the people of the county, for the fact that he had not mixed much with them was due to his own want of inclination for the company offered him. He was quite man of the world enough to see that his presence was more than welcome wherever mothers congregated who had daughters to dispose of, and, on one or two occasions of the sort, he remembered that Lady Eliza had been present, and knew she must have seen it too. As he had no false pride, he had also no false humility, for the two are so much alike that it is only by the artificial light of special occasions that their difference can be seen. He had believed that Lady Eliza would be glad to give him Cecilia. He knew very well that the girl had no fortune, for it was a truth which the female part of the community were not likely to let a young bachelor of means forget; and he had supposed that a man who could provide for her, without taking her four miles from the gates of Morphie, would have been a desirable suitor in Lady Eliza’s eyes. Her opposition must, as he had been told, be rooted in an unknown obstacle; but, more ruthless than Cecilia, he was not going to let the hidden thing rest. He would drag it to the light, and deal with it as he would deal with anything which stood in his way to her. Few of us are perfect; Gilbert certainly was not, and he did not care what Lady Eliza felt. It was not often that he had set his heart upon a woman, and he had never set his heart and soul upon one before. If he had not been accustomed to turn back when there was no soul in the affair, he was not going to do so now that it was a deeper question.