"No," said Urith, "I do not covet the prize. So much for one thing. For the other, as I said, the odds are unequal." "Then," said Julian, "return me my gloves." "I suppose they have fallen. Would you have me dismount to search the grass for them? Get off your horse yourself, or call Fox to your aid. I will not stoop to look for them for you." "You have my gloves. They are not on the ground. Return them to me, or I--" Then Urith impatiently whipped her horse and thrust Julian aside. "This is arrant folly," she said; "I want to be at home. I will be stayed by you no longer." CHAPTER IV. THE SUSPENSE. The ill-assorted, discordant party pushed on as fast as possible along a road that, as it neared inhabited country, became rough and uncertain, and under a sky of diminished light, for the heather on this portion of the moor had been burnt early in the day, and hardly any of the embers remained aglow. No combination was possible that would content all, for every one except the good-humoured Bessie had some private grudge against another, and Bessie herself was depressed by the general dissatisfaction. Anthony Cleverdon was vexed that he had not been left to convey Urith to her home undisturbed, though he admitted to himself that for her sake the present accidental arrangement was the best. Julian Crymes, still incandescent in her anger and jealousy, was unwilling to speak to Anthony, and unwilling to allow him to leave her side to address a word to, and show attention to, Urith. When she did speak to him, it was in a taunting tone, and his answers were curt, almost to rudeness. The temper of Fox Crymes, never smooth, was now fretted to considerable asperity; for he was smarting under the sense of rejection. He had asked for the hand of Urith, and had been refused, and he saw, or suspected that he saw, a reason for his rejection--an attachment for Anthony Cleverdon. Fox was vain and conceited, and envious of his namesake, who had superior physical powers, a finer person, and a better fortune than himself. He was not sorry that his half-sister was disappointed, for whatever might distress her, gave pleasure to him. However, the occasion of her distress on this occasion was something that wounded him as well as her. Fox loved Urith, as far as he was capable of loving, but the jealousy he now felt was no measure of his love; like the famous Serpent's Egg, it was bred of a score of parents. It was the produce of mortified vanity, of envy of Anthony Cleverdon's superior gifts of nature and fortune, of disappointed avarice, quite as much as of rejected love. Fox Crymes' suit for Urith was not instigated wholly by his admiration for her charms; it sprang quite as much out of his desire to obtain the small patrimony which would fall to her on her mother's decease.