thing of what he had experienced once before; he knew the truth and he had to keep his friend in the dark. In those earlier days he had one confidant, one accomplice, in Mina Zabriska. The heavy secret was all his own to carry now.
As a consequence of his preoccupation Janie Iver found him rather unsympathetic, and with her usual candor she told him so.
"You don't really appreciate Bob," said she. "Nobody quite knows him except me. I didn't use to, but now I know what a strong character he has."
Unwontedly cynical thoughts rose in old Mr Neeld. Had he come down to Fairholme to listen to the platitudes of virtuous love? Indeed he had come for no such thing. All young men have strong characters while they are engaged.
"And it's such a comfort to have a man one can lean upon," Janie pursued, looking, however, admirably capable of standing without extraneous support.
There it was again! She'd be calling him her "master" next—as the heroine does in the Third Act, to unfailing applause. What was all this to ears that listened for a whisper of Harry Tristram?
"The most delightful thing is," Janie pursued, "that our marriage is to make no change at all in his way of life. We're going to live at Mingham just as he has lived all his life—a real country life on a farm!" There was no hint that other ideals of existence had ever possessed an alluring charm; the high life with Harry, the broad and cosmopolitan life with the Major—where were they? "I've insisted on it, the one thing I've had my own way in."
Bob was being transmogrified into a Man of Iron, if not of Blood. Vainly Mr Neeld consulted his memories.
"And Mingham's so bound up with it all. I used to
go there with Mina Zabriska." She smiled in retrospect; it would have been pardonable if Neeld had smiled too. "I haven't seen her for ever so long," Janie added, "but she'll be at Blent to-night."