Mr. Benthall looked as though about to speak, but he merely bowed and left the room. When the door closed behind him, Marian sank down into her chair, and burst into a flood of bitter tears. It was the second repulse she had met with that day, and she had not been accustomed to repulses, of late. CHAPTER XXXII. AN INCOMPLETE VICTORY. Mr. Benthall's neat cob was not standing in a loose box in the Woolgreaves stable, as was its usual wont when its master had paid a visit to that hospitable mansion. On this occasion the schoolmaster had walked over from Helmingham, and, though by nature an indolent man, Mr. Benthall was exceedingly pleased at the prospect of the walk before him on emerging from Woolgreaves after his interview in the library with Mrs. Creswell. He felt that he required a vent for the excitement under which he was labouring, a vent which could only be found in sharp and prolonged exercise. The truth was that he was very much excited and very angry indeed. "It is a very charitable way of looking at it--a more than charitable way," he muttered to himself as he strode over the ground, "to fancy that Mrs. Creswell was ignorant of what she was doing; did not know that she was offering me a bribe to vote for her husband, and to influence the farmers on this estate to do the same. She knew it well enough; she is by far too clever a woman not to understand all about it. And if she would try that game on with us, who hold a comparatively superior position, what won't she do with those lower on the electoral roll? Clever woman too, thorough woman of the world. I wonder at her forgetting herself, and showing her hand so completely. How admirably she emphasised the 'any of the inmates' in that sentence when she gave me my congé! it was really remarkably well done! When I tell Gertrude this, it will show her the real facts at once. She has had a firm impression that, up to the present time, 'madam,' as she calls Mrs. Creswell, has had no idea as to the state of the case between us; but I don't think even incredulous Gertrude would have much doubt of it if she had been present, and caught the expression of Mrs. Creswell's face as she forbade my communication with 'any' of the inmates of her house. Neither look nor tone admitted of the smallest ambiguity, and I took care to appreciate both. Something must be done to circumvent our young friend the hostess of Woolgreaves."