An expense the very suggestion of which turned that miserly heart cold. Mr. Chattaway thought the world was terribly against him. Certainly, what with one source of annoyance and another, the day had not been one of pleasure. In point of fact, Mr. Chattaway was of too suspicious a nature ever to enjoy much ease. It may be thought that with the departure of the dreaded stranger, he would have experienced complete immunity from the fears which had latterly so shaken him. Not so; the departure had only served to augment them. He had been informed by Miss Diana on the previous night of Mr. Daw's proposed return to his distant home, of his having relinquished Rupert's cause, of his half apology for having ever taken it up; he had heard again from George Ryle this morning that the gentleman had actually gone. Most men would have accepted this as a termination to the unpleasantness, and been thankful for it; but Mr. Chattaway, in his suspicious nature, doubted whether it did not mean treachery; whether it was not, in short, a _ruse_ of the enemy. Terribly awakened were his fears that day. He suspected an ambush in every turn, a thief behind every tree; and he felt that he hated Rupert with a bitter hatred. Poor Rupert at that moment did not look like one to be either hated or dreaded, could Mr. Chattaway have seen him through some telescope. When Chattaway was sitting in his office, Ford meekly standing to be questioned, Rupert was toiling on foot towards Trevlyn Hold. In his good nature he had left his pony at home for the benefit of Edith and Emily Chattaway. Since its purchase, they had never ceased teasing him to let them try it, and he had this day complied, and walked to Blackstone. He looked pale, worn, weary; his few days' riding to and fro had unfitted him for the walk, at least in inclination, and Rupert seemed to feel the fatigue this evening more than ever.