There,
and that's the truth, because I knaw it and so help me God--and if I'm
wrong it's a master one."
The Squire, who was striding up and down the room in his irritation,
stopped suddenly in his walk, and looked at his retainer with a sharp
and searching gaze upon his noble features. Notwithstanding his
prejudices, his simplicity, and his occasional absurdities, he was in
his own way an able man, and an excellent judge of human nature. Even
his prejudices were as a rule founded upon some solid ground, only it
was as a general rule impossible to get at it. Also he had a share of
that marvellous instinct which, when it exists, registers the mental
altitude of the minds of others with the accuracy of an aneroid. He
could tell when a man's words rang true and when they rang false, and
what is more when the conviction of the true, and the falsity of the
false, rested upon a substantial basis of fact or error. Of course the
instinct was a vague, and from its nature an undefinable one, but it
existed, and in the present instance arose in strength. He looked at
the ugly melancholy countenance of the faithful George with that keen
glance of his, and observed that for the moment it was almost
beautiful--beautiful in the light of conviction which shone upon it.
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