up all sorts of quaint odds and ends of information.  But perhaps rather than these accomplishments it was the man’s transparent honesty and simple-mindedness, his love for what is true and noble, and his contempt of what is mean and base, which, unwittingly peeping out through his conversation, attracted her more than all the rest.  Ida was no more a young girl, to be caught by a handsome face or dazzled by a superficial show of mind.  She was a thoughtful, ripened woman, quick to perceive, and with the rare talent of judgment wherewith to weigh the proceeds of her perception.  In plain, middle-aged Colonel Quaritch she found a very perfect gentleman, and valued him accordingly.

And so day grew into day through that lovely autumn-tide.  Edward Cossey was away in London, Quest had ceased from troubling, and journeying together through the sweet shadows of companionship, by slow but sure degrees they drew near to the sunlit plain of love.  For it is not common, indeed, it is so uncommon as to be almost impossible, that a man and woman between whom there stands no natural impediment can halt for very long in those shadowed ways.  There is throughout all nature an impulse that pushes ever onwards towards completion, and from completion to fruition.  Liking leads to sympathy, sympathy points the path to love, and then love demands its own.  This is the order of affairs, and down its well-trodden road these two were quickly travelling.

George the wily saw it, and winked his eye with solemn meaning.  The Squire also saw something of it, not being wanting in knowledge of the world, and after much cogitation and many solitary walks elected to leave matters alone for the present.  He liked Colonel Quaritch, and thought that it would be a good thing for Ida to get married, though the idea of parting from her troubled his heart sorely.  Whether or no it would be desirable from his point of view that she should marry the Colonel was a matter on which he had not as yet fully made up his mind.  Sometimes he thought it would, and sometimes he thought the reverse.  Then at times vague ideas suggested by Edward Cossey’s behaviour about the loan would come to puzzle him.  But at present he was so much in the dark that he could come to no absolute decision, so with unaccustomed wisdom for so headstrong and precipitate a man, he determined to refrain from interference, and for a while at any rate allow events to take their natural course.

CHAPTER XVI

THE HOUSE WITH THE RED PILLARS

Two days after his receipt of the second letter from the “Tiger,” Mr. Quest announced to his wife that he was going to London on business connected with the bank, and expected to be away for a couple of nights.

She laughed straight out.  “Really, William,” she said, “you are a most consummate actor.  I wonder that you think it worth while to keep up the farce with me.  Well, I hope that Edith is not going to be very expensive this time, because we don’t seem to be too rich just now, and you see there is no more of my money for her to have.”