qualities. The redeeming virtue of the father palpably present in
the son becomes his curse, through a faint diminution of the strength
of the check which caused that virtue to be the father's salvation.
The propensity, too, which is a man's evil genius, and leads him to
madness and utter ruin, gives vivid reality to all his words and
thoughts, and becomes all his strength, if by divine assistance it
can just be subdued and prevented from rising in victorious
insurrection. But this is a digression, useful, however, in its way,
because it will explain Mrs. Butts when we come a little nearer to
her in the future.

For a time Clem's visits to the squire's house always took place when
the squire was at home, but an amateur concert was to be arranged in
which Clem was to take part together with the squire's lady. Clem
consequently was obliged to go to the Hall for the purpose of
practising, and so it came to pass that he was there at unusual hours
and when the master was afield. These morning and afternoon calls
did not cease when the concert was over. Clem's wife did not know
anything about them, and, if she noticed his frequent absence, she
was met with an excuse. Perhaps the worst, or almost the worst
effect of relationships which we do not like to acknowledge, is the
secrecy and equivocation which they beget. From the very first
moment when the intimacy between the squire's wife and Clem began to
be anything more than harmless, he was compelled to shuffle and to
become contemptible. At the same time I believe he defended himself
against himself with the weapons which were ever ready when self rose
against self because of some wrong-doing. He was not as other men.
It was absurd to class what he did with what an ordinary person might
do, although externally his actions and those of the ordinary person
might resemble one another. I cannot trace the steps by which the