And so, in his ignorance, he fell passively back upon the compan onship that wise men declare to be the best source of all consolation—the companionship of solitude and work.
Work, if it brought nothing else, brought its own material reward. By Christmas his debt to the Squire was paid off. By the following Spring there was promise of such crops in Ashcot as the land had never been made to yield since Joshua Lawrence's death. Waving, weed-free grass fields; well-kept potato ridges; the young corn green and upright; the orchard showing abundant signs of Autumn plenty. And for whom? for what? Tired with work, Steven was returning one night from early-grass cutting—this ever-recurring question vexing his heart—a sharp bend in one of the lanes near Ashcot brought him suddenly upon the Squire. The usual salutation was exchanged between them, and Steven had already passed a step or two down the lane, when Mr. Hilliard reined in his horse, and, turning, held out his hand. "Lawrence," he said, "I've been anxious to see you; I've a message for you—come, shake hands, lad! Don't keep up ill-blood forever. I've a message for you from Kate. You won't refuse to hear it, I suppose?"
A flush rose over Steven's sun-burnt face. "Of course I will listen, sir, to anything that you or Miss Katharine choose to say to me."
"Well, let the past be past, then, and be friends with us! Katharine's marriage is fixed, as I suppose you've heard, for the nineteeth, not a week hence, and she wants you to come to it. A very quiet affair it will be—not above a dozen people present. It grieves Katharine, and Lord Petres, too, that you should continue to be estranged from us."
"They are very good, both of them," said Steven, turning away his face. "Tell Miss Katharine, please, that I am grateful for her kind intention in asking me. As to going, sir—you must know how impossible it would be for me to do that!"
"Well, well," said the Squire, "if I speak honestly, I expected nothing less—only a year past, poor thing, and . . . ah, well, no need to open old wounds afresh! If you won't come to the wedding, Lawrence, will you come and dine with me next Tuesday? This is my invitation, mind. Petres is coming down on some settlement business, and I am going to ask one or two of the Clithero people, yourself among them, to meet him. A men's party only—Kate is still in London with her sister, and poor Mrs. Hilliard is too ill, I'm sorry to say, to appear. Now, Lawrence, I shall take it as a show of personal resentment to me if you refuse. Lord Petres, Katharine, all of us, wish the past to be done with. Surely this is a time when old wrongs should be forgotten."
Then Steven looked up full at the Squire. "The past can never be done with," said he, "nor wrongs forgotten. I'm not that sort of man! and, indeed, my wish, as long as I remain in the old country, is to have nothing to do with any kind of society again. However, sir," he added, "I accept your invitation. I will dine with you. It would ill become me, after all your kindness, were I churl enough to refuse."
And when he got home, for the first time for months past, Steven made mention of the Squire's family to Barbara. "I'm going to dine at the Dene next Tuesday, Barbara—there's news for you! I'm going to dinner-parties among lords and gentry once more. Lord Petres is coming down from London, and the wedding-day is fixed for the nineteenth. To think we never knew it! We are like people living in a prison, Barbara, you and I! never hear a bit of what's going on, now-a-days!"
