"You thought that with your money you could buy everything--even my child's heart; and when you found you could not, then you took her poor heart, and trampled on it; you spurned it; and you trod it again and again under your cursed foot till all the blood was crushed out of it." Her eyes glowed, there was the madness of long-retained and fostered hate in her heart. "You made a wreck of her life, and now your own child spurns you, and tramples on all your fatherly love, laughs at your ambition, mocks all your schemes, and flings back your love in your face as something too tainted, too base, to be worth a groat. Ah, ha! I have prayed to see this day. I see it, and am glad. Now go." She stepped on one side, and the Squire walked down the church. In the porch he found Bessie, or rather Bessie found him, for he did not observe her. She put her hand on his arm, and looked earnestly, supplicatingly into his eyes. He shook off her hand, and walked on. Half the congregation--nearly all the men, and a good many of the women, were in the churchyard in groups, talking. Fox was with Anthony, but as soon as the Squire appeared, he fell from him and drew back near one of the trees of the church avenue, and fixed his keen observant eye on the old man. But every other eye was on him as well. Cleverdon came slowly, and with that mixture of pomposity and dignity which was usual with him, but which was this day exaggerated, down the avenue, he nodded and saluted with his hat the acquaintances whom he observed, but he said no word of greeting to any one. Presently he came opposite his son, then he stayed his foot, looked at him, and their eyes met. Not a muscle was relaxed in his face, his eye was cold and stony. Then he turned his head away, and walked on at the same leisurely pace. The blood boiled up in Anthony's arteries. A film passed over his sight and obscured it, then he turned and went down another path, and abruptly left the graveyard. CHAPTER XXIII. IN THE PORCH. The marriage had taken place; the banns were no further opposed. Old Cleverdon, indeed, sought a lawyer's advice; but found he could do nothing to prevent it. Anthony was of age, and his own master. The only control over him he could exercise was through the strings of the purse. The threads of filial love and obedience must have been slender, they had snapped so lightly. But the Squire had never regarded them much, he had considered the others tough to resist any strain--strong to hold--in the wildest mood. He was not only incensed because Anthony defied him, but because the defiance had been open and successful. He had proclaimed his disapproval of the match by forbidding the banns before the entire parish; consequently, his defeat was public.