"Well; yes. I have been disappointed as regards money. It is of no use denying it." "I should not mention it now, only that I want to know that you exonerate me." "I have never blamed you;--neither you, nor anybody else; unless, indeed, it has been myself." "You mean that you regret what you've done?" "No; I don't mean that. I am too devotedly attached to that dear girl whom we have just left to feel any regret that I have engaged myself to her. But I do think that had I managed better with your uncle things might have been different." "I doubt it. Indeed I know that it is not so; and can assure you that you need not make yourself unhappy on that score. I had thought, as you well know, that he would have done something for Lily;--something, though not as much as he always intended to do for Bell. But you may be sure of this; that he had made up his mind as to what he would do. Nothing that you or I could have said would have changed him." "Well; we won't say anything more about it," said Crosbie. Then they went on again in silence, and arrived at Guestwick in ample time for the train. "Let me know as soon as you get to town," said Crosbie. "Oh, of course. I'll write to you before that." And so they parted. As Dale turned and went, Crosbie felt that he liked him less than he had done before; and Bernard, also, as he was driving him, came to the conclusion that Crosbie would not be so good a fellow as a brother-in-law as he had been as a chance friend. "He'll give us trouble, in some way; and I'm sorry that I brought him down." That was Dale's inward conviction in the matter. Crosbie's way from Guestwick lay, by railway, to Barchester, the cathedral city lying in the next county, from whence he purposed to have himself conveyed over to Courcy. There had, in truth, been no cause for his very early departure, as he was aware that all arrivals at country houses should take place at some hour not much previous to dinner. He had been determined to be so soon upon the road by a feeling that it would be well for him to get over those last hours. Thus he found himself in Barchester at eleven o'clock, with nothing on his hands to do; and, having nothing else to do, he went to church. There was a full service at the cathedral, and as the verger marshalled him up to one of the empty stalls, a little spare old man was beginning to chant the Litany. "I did not mean to fall in for all this," said Crosbie, to himself, as he settled himself with his arms on the cushion. But the peculiar charm of that old man's voice soon attracted him;--a voice that, though tremulous, was yet strong; and he ceased to regret the saint whose honour and glory had occasioned the length of that day's special service. "And who is the old gentleman who chanted the Litany?" he asked the verger afterwards, as he allowed himself to be shown round the monuments of the cathedral.