All was wanted to defend Daniel Robson at the approaching York assizes.  His wife had handed over to Philip all the money or money’s worth she could lay her hands upon.  Daniel himself was not one to be much beforehand with the world; but to Bell’s thrifty imagination the round golden guineas, tied up in the old stocking-foot against rent-day, seemed a mint of money on which Philip might draw infinitely.  As yet she did not comprehend the extent of her husband’s danger.  Sylvia went about like one in a dream, keeping back the hot tears that might interfere with the course of life she had prescribed for herself in that terrible hour when she first learnt all.  Every penny of money either she or her mother could save went to Philip.  Kester’s hoard, too, was placed in Hepburn’s hands at Sylvia’s earnest entreaty; for Kester had no great opinion of Philip’s judgment, and would rather have taken his money straight himself to Mr. Dawson, and begged him to use it for his master’s behoof.

Indeed, if anything, the noiseless breach between Kester and Philip had widened of late.  It was seed-time, and Philip, in his great anxiety for every possible interest that might affect Sylvia, and also as some distraction from his extreme anxiety about her father, had taken to study agriculture of an evening in some old books which he had borrowed—­The Farmer’s Complete Guide, and such like; and from time to time he came down upon the practical dogged Kester with directions gathered from the theories in his books.  Of course the two fell out, but without many words.  Kester persevered in his old ways, making light of Philip and his books in manner and action, till at length Philip withdrew from the contest.  ’Many a man may lead a horse to water, but there’s few can make him drink,’ and Philip certainly was not one of those few.  Kester, indeed, looked upon him with jealous eyes on many accounts.  He had favoured Charley Kinraid as a lover of Sylvia’s; and though he had no idea of the truth—­though he believed in the drowning of the specksioneer as much as any one—­yet the year which had elapsed since Kinraid’s supposed death was but a very short while to the middle-aged man, who forgot how slowly time passes with the young; and he could often have scolded Sylvia, if the poor girl had been a whit less heavy at heart than she was, for letting Philip come so much about her—­come, though it was on her father’s business.  For the darkness of their common dread drew them together, occasionally to the comparative exclusion of Bell and Kester, which the latter perceived and resented.  Kester even allowed himself to go so far as to wonder what Philip could want with all the money, which to him seemed unaccountable; and once or twice the ugly thought crossed his mind, that shops conducted by young men were often not so profitable as when guided by older heads, and that some of the coin poured into Philip’s keeping might have another destination than the defence of his master.  Poor Philip! and he was spending all his own, and more than all his own money, and no one ever knew it, as he had bound down his friendly bankers to secrecy.