He was right. It was when he was lying in his coffin, yet unburied, that Kenrick made his next attack upon him in that scurrility of phrase of which he was a master. When this curious exponent of the advantages of peace had left him at Brick Court, and his few incidental bruises were attended to by John Eyles, poor Oliver's despondency returned to him. He did not feel very like one who has got the better of another in a quarrel, though he knew that he had done all that he said he had done: he had taught his enemies a lesson. But then he began to think about Mary Horneck, who had been so grossly insulted simply because of her kindness to him. He felt that if she had been less gracious to him--if she had treated him as Mrs. Thrale, for example, had been accustomed to treat him--regarding him and his defects merely as excuses for displaying her own wit, she would have escaped all mention by Kenrick. Yes, he still felt that he was the cause of her being insulted, and he would never forgive himself for it. But what did it matter whether he forgave himself or not? It was the forgiveness of Mary Horneck and her friends that he had good reason to think about. The longer he considered this point the more convinced he became that he had forfeited forever the friendship which he had enjoyed for several years, and which had been a dear consolation to him in his hours of despondency. A barrier had been raised between himself and the Hornecks that could not be surmounted. He sat down at his desk and wrote a letter to Mary, asking her forgiveness for the insult for which he said he felt himself to be responsible. He could not, he added, expect that in the future it would be allowed to him to remain on the same terms of intimacy with her and her family as had been permitted to him in the past. Suddenly he recollected the unknown trouble which had been upon the girl when he had last seen her. She was not yet free from that secret sorrow which he had hoped it might be in his power to dispel. He and he only had seen Captain Jackson speaking to her in the green room at Covent Garden, and he only had good reason to believe that her sorrow had originated with that man. Under these circumstances he asked himself if he was justified in leaving her to fight her battle alone. She had not asked him to be her champion, and he felt that if she had done so, it was a very poor champion that he would have made; but still he knew more of her grief than any one else, and he believed he might be able to help her. He tore up the letter which he had written to her. “I will not leave her,” he cried. “Whatever may happen--whatever blame people who do not understand may say I have earned, I will not leave her until she has been freed from whatever distress she is in.” He had scarcely seated himself when his servant announced Captain Horneck.