and defies the world and its evil to convince her that the man to whom
she has given her trust is not most worthy of it. Not so, however, with
the first timid bud of incipient interest. Slander nips it like a frost;
in deadliness it is second only to ridicule.

Ruth Westmacott lent an ear to her brother's stories, incredulous only
until she remembered vague hints she had caught from this person and
from that, whose meaning was now made clear by what Richard told her,
which, incidentally, they served to corroborate. Corroboration, too,
did the tale of infamy receive from the friendship that prevailed
between Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard, the old ne'er-dowell, who in his
time - as everybody knew - had come so low, despite his gentle birth,
as to have been one of a company of strolling players. Had Mr. Wilding
been other than she now learnt he was, he would surely not cherish an
attachment for a person so utterly unworthy. Clearly, they were birds
of a plumage.

And so, her maiden purity outraged at the thought that she had been in
danger of lending a willing ear to the wooing of such a man, she had
crushed this love which she blushed to think was on the point of
throwing out roots to fasten on her soul, and was sedulous thereafter
in manifesting the aversion which she accounted it her duty to foster
for Mr. Wilding.

Richard had watched and smiled in secret, taking pride in the cunning
way he had wrought this change - that cunning which so often is given
to the stupid by way of compensation for the intelligence that has been
withheld them.

And now what time discountenanced, Wilding fumed and fretted all in