his house to be reconciled over glasses of mulled wine. Jasper
drugs the wine, and thus provokes a violent scene; next day he
tells Crisparkle that Neville is "murderous." "There is something
of the tiger in his dark blood." He spreads the story of the
fracas in the town.

Grewgious, Rosa's guardian, now comes down on business; the girl
fails to explain to him the unsatisfactory relations between her
and Edwin: Grewgious is to return to her "at Christmas," if she
sends for him, and she does send. Grewgious, "an angular man," all
duty and sentiment (he had loved Rosa's mother), has an interview
with Edwin's trustee, Jasper, for whom he has no enthusiasm, but
whom he does not in any way suspect. They part on good terms, to
meet at Christmas. Crisparkle, with whom Helena has fallen
suddenly in love, arranges with Jasper that Edwin and Landless
shall meet and be reconciled, as both are willing to be, at a
dinner in Jasper's rooms, on Christmas Eve. Jasper, when
Crisparkle proposes this, denotes by his manner "some close
internal calculation." We see that he is reckoning how the dinner
suits his plan of campaign, and "close calculation" may refer, as
in Mr. Proctor's theory, to the period of the moon: on Christmas
Eve there will be no moonshine at midnight. Jasper, having worked
out this problem, accepts Crisparkle's proposal, and his assurances
about Neville, and shows Crisparkle a diary in which he has entered
his fears that Edwin's life is in danger from Neville. Edwin (who
is not in Cloisterham at this moment) accepts, by letter, the
invitation to meet Neville at Jasper's on Christmas Eve.

Meanwhile Edwin visits Grewgious in his London chambers; is
lectured on his laggard and supercilious behaviour as a lover, and