Mr. Tuke, as a result of his grudging sop to respectability, had brought about nothing more definite than some unprofitable temporizing. No doubt this served him well right, and was a lesson to him to be more particular for the future in his dealings with his own conscience. For that same usurer will think nothing of charging a hundred per cent. on the least little matter of “accommodation.” To choose the lesser of two advantages is thought a virtue by some; but then to be held kicking one’s heels between them both becomes a grievous injustice. This hardship our friend thought himself to suffer, and was very morose and discontented in consequence. Does any one think meanly of this gentleman that he could fly for comfort of a legitimate suit gone awry to a humbler breast than it was his temptation to use and bruise? I can only offer the defence that pure-hearted Betty thought none the less of him for doing so, and that to no sweeter Mentor could any foundering soul submit its ethological perplexities. For the question of “taste”--let _him_ decide who is the best authority on the right cut of a coat. But passion, I believe, is not grounded on any conventional knowledge of what is fitting. Now, for some weeks, the master of “Delsrop” led a very solitary and rather crabbed life. Debarred, by the simplest honour, from going whither his heart would have conducted him, he yet resented the necessity of a self-denial that would probably in the end prove itself futile. Miss Royston might, he had some ground for believing, favour his suit eventually, could he submit to her his sufficient credentials. Yet, though he had committed himself to a rather negative declaration; though he perceived his most honest and most reasonable course would be to set himself right in that lady’s eyes; though he felt no umbrage at her caution, which was certainly under the circumstances justifiable, he could not altogether whip himself away from the temptation to solve the problem of an explanation by--doing nothing at all. He succeeded in at least scotching that snake. But he dared not let his thoughts run on Betty, or on the sweetness and innocence that, to the beast in man, are such lures to brutality. It is only when the blood runs aged that we can look on any extreme beauty of nature without wishing to obscure it, so unbearable to our diseased perceptions is the flawless. At length he made up his mind to the right course. Christmas was over and done with--a somewhat dismal hermit-time to him--and early in the new year Blythewood and his sister were to journey to London. He would ride with them; would spend a few days in town, and while there, would endeavour to induce the lawyer Creel to some explanation of that enigma of his inheritance. Surely, with such an object in view as a union with a lady of a certain rank and position, he would not be refused those credentials he desired.