'Excellent! You speak like a fellow recording the devout observances of
a great dame with her minor and superior, ecclesiastical comforters.
Regular at church?'

'Her ladyship goes.'

'A woman without religion, Gower Woodseer, is a weed on the water, or
she's hard as nails. We shall see. Generally, Madge and the youngster
parade the park at this hour. I drive round to the stables. Go in and
offer your version of that rascally dog's trick. It seems the nearest we
can come at. He's a sot, and drunken dogs 'll do anything. I've had him
on my hands, and I've got the stain of him.'

They trotted through Esslemont Park gates. 'I've got that place,
Calesford, on my hands, too,' the earl said, suddenly moved to a liking
for his Kentish home.

He and Gower were struck by a common thought of the extraordinary burdens
his indulgence in impulses drew upon him. Present circumstances pictured
to Gower the opposing weighed and matured good reason for his choosing
Madge, and he complimented himself in his pity for the earl. But
Fleetwood, as he reviewed a body of acquaintances perfectly free from the
wretched run in harness, though they had their fits and their whims, was
pushed to the conclusion that fatalism marked his particular course
through life. He could not hint at such an idea to the unsympathetic
fellow, or rather, the burly antagonist to anything of the sort, beside
him. Lord Feltre would have understood and appreciated it instantly.
Where is aid to be had if we have the Fates against us? Feltre knew the
Power, he said; was an example of 'the efficacy of supplications'; he had