He began to watch the hands of the clock with more impatience than formerly when, after breakfast, he sat reading the papers before the library fire, waiting for the hour when he was accustomed to go down to the cottage.
His interest in the papers decreased as his interest in the time of day grew stronger, and for the first time in his life he found to his great surprise that after reading the news of the day with the greatest care, he was often quite unable to remember a word of what he had read.

Then, at first, he would be angry with himself and would impose upon himself the task of reading the paper again before going to the cottage.

But very soon he found that he had to read it twice almost every day, and this seemed such an unreasonable waste of time that he gave it up, and fell into very unsystematic habits.
For some days, as though by mutual consent, neither Mrs.Goddard nor the squire spoke of John Short.

The squire was glad he was gone and hoped that he would not come back, but was too kind-hearted to say so; Mrs.
Goddard instinctively understood Mr.Juxon's state of mind and did not disturb his equanimity by broaching an unpleasant subject.

Several days passed by after John had gone and he would certainly not have been flattered had he known that during that time two, out of the four persons he had met so often in his short holiday, had never so much as mentioned him.
One afternoon in January the squire found himself alone with Mrs.
Goddard.