The Vicar was of opinion that the week might be judiciously curtailed by two days; and, consequently, Mrs. Fenwick presented her compliments to the Ladies Sophie and Carolina Stowte, and expressed the great pleasure which she and Mr. Fenwick would have in going to Turnover Park on the Tuesday, and staying till the Friday.

"So that I shall only be shooting two days," said the Vicar, "which will modify the aspect of my infidelity considerably."

They went to Turnover Castle. The poor old Marquis had rather a bad time of it for the hour or two previous to their arrival. It had become an acknowledged fact now in the county that Sam Brattle had had nothing to do with the murder of Farmer Trumbull, and that his acquaintance with the murderers had sprung from his desire to see his unfortunate sister settled in marriage with a man whom he at the time did not know to be disreputable. There had therefore been a reaction in favour of Sam Brattle, whom the county now began to regard as something of a hero. The Marquis, understanding all that, had come to be aware that he had wronged the Vicar in that matter of the murder. And then, though he had been told upon very good authority,—no less than that of his daughters, who had been so informed by the sisters of a most exemplary neighbouring curate,—that Mr. Fenwick was a man who believed "just next to nothing," and would just as soon associate with a downright Pagan like old Brattle, as with any professing Christian,—still there was the fact of the Bishop's good opinion; and, though the Marquis was a self-willed man, to him a bishop was always a bishop. It was also clear to him that he had been misled in those charges which he had made against the Vicar in that matter of poor Carry Brattle's residence at Salisbury. Something of the truth of the girl's history had come to the ears of the Marquis, and he had been made to believe that he had been wrong. Then there was the affair of the chapel, in which, under his son's advice, he was at this moment expending £700 in rectifying the mistake which he had made. In giving the Marquis his due we must acknowledge that he cared but little about the money. Marquises, though they may have large properties, are not always in possession of any number of loose hundreds which they can throw away without feeling the loss. Nor was the Marquis of Trowbridge so circumstanced now. But that trouble did not gall him nearly so severely as the necessity which was on him to rectify an error made by himself. He had done a foolish thing. Under no circumstances should the chapel have been built on that spot. He knew it now, and he knew that he must apologise. Noblesse oblige. The old lord was very stupid, very wrong-headed, and sometimes very arrogant; but he would not do a wrong if he knew it, and nothing on earth would make him tell a wilful lie. The epithet indeed might have been omitted; for a lie is not a lie unless it be wilful.

Lord Trowbridge passed the hours of this Tuesday morning under the frightful sense of the necessity for apologising;—and yet he remembered well the impudence of the man, how he had ventured to allude to the Ladies Stowte, likening them to—to—to—! It was terrible to be thought of. And his lordship remembered, too, how this man had written about the principal entrance to his own mansion as though it had been no more than the entrance to any other man's house! Though the thorns still rankled in his own flesh, he had to own that he himself had been wrong.

And he did it,—with an honesty that was beyond the reach of his much more clever son. When the Fenwicks arrived, they were taken into the drawing-room, in which were sitting the Ladies Sophie and Carolina with various guests already assembled at the Castle. In a minute or two the Marquis shuffled in and shook hands with the two new comers. Then he shuffled about the room for another minute or two, and at last got his arm through that of the Vicar, and led him away into his own sanctum. "Mr. Fenwick," he said, "I think it best to express my regret at once for two things that have occurred."

The drawing-room at Turnover Castle.
Click to [ENLARGE]

"It does not signify, my lord."

"But it does signify to me, and if you will listen to me for a moment I shall take your doing so as a favour added to that which you have conferred upon me in coming here." The Vicar could only bow and listen. "I am sorry, Mr. Fenwick, that I should have written to the bishop of this diocese in reference to your conduct." Fenwick found it very difficult to hold his tongue when this was said. He imagined that the Marquis was going to excuse himself about the chapel,—and about the chapel he cared nothing at all. But as to that letter to the bishop, he did feel that the less said about it the better. He restrained himself, however, and the Marquis went on. "Things had been told me, Mr. Fenwick;—and I thought that I was doing my duty."

"It did me no harm, my lord."