Faradeane looked him straight in the face.
“Your lordship mistakes me for a better man, I hope,” he said, with a smile.
The bishop bowed with ready courtesy and self-possession.
“It is not so, then. Pray forgive me.”
“Dine with us to-night, will you, Faradeane?” said the squire, with affectionate familiarity.
Faradeane hesitated a moment, then shook his head.
“Not to-night,” he said.
The squire knew him too well to dream of pressing him; and the bishop, having exchanged a few words with him, he and the squire turned homeward.
Half-an-hour later Bartley Bradstone left The Maples to walk to the Grange. Most men are nervous and restless on the day before their marriage, but Mr. Bartley Bradstone was nervous and restless to a remarkable degree. He had wandered about his huge house all day, bullying the workmen and the servants, and it was not until his brougham had been brought to the door that he had suddenly decided that it would do him good to walk instead of ride to the Grange.
He had got himself dressed in his evening suit with even more than his usual care, as his badgered valet, driven almost to distraction, could testify, and he lit up a cigar at starting to steady his nerves. He had also drunk a full glass of brandy-and-water for the same reason.