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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The New Rector, by Stanley J. Weyman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The New Rector
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2012 [eBook #39215]
+[Most recently updated: June 14, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Charles Bowen
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW RECTOR ***
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW RECTOR
+
+BY
+STANLEY J. WEYMAN
+
+NEW YORK
+
+AMERICAN PUBLISHERS CORPORATION
+
+310-318 Sixth Avenue
+
+Copyright 1891,
+BY
+UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY.
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I. “LE ROI EST MORT!”
+ CHAPTER II. “VIVE LE ROI!”
+ CHAPTER III. AN AWKWARD MEETING.
+ CHAPTER IV. BIRDS IN THE WILDERNESS.
+ CHAPTER V. “REGINALD LINDO, 1850.”
+ CHAPTER VI. THE BONAMYS AT HOME.
+ CHAPTER VII. THE HAMMONDS’ DINNER PARTY.
+ CHAPTER VIII. TWO SURPRISES.
+ CHAPTER IX. TOWN TALK.
+ CHAPTER X. OUT WITH THE SHEEP.
+ CHAPTER XI. THE DOCTOR SPEAKS.
+ CHAPTER XII. THE RECTOR IS UNGRATEFUL.
+ CHAPTER XIII. LAURA’S PROVISO.
+ CHAPTER XIV. THE LETTERS IN THE CUPBOARD.
+ CHAPTER XV. THE BAZAAR.
+ CHAPTER XVI. “LORD DYNMORE IS HERE.”
+ CHAPTER XVII. THE LAWYER AT HOME.
+ CHAPTER XVIII. A FRIEND IN NEED.
+ CHAPTER XIX. THE DAY AFTER.
+ CHAPTER XX. A SUDDEN CALL.
+ CHAPTER XXI. IN PROFUNDIS.
+ CHAPTER XXII. THE RECTOR’S DECISION.
+ CHAPTER XXIII. THE CURATE HEARS THE NEWS.
+ CHAPTER XXIV. THE CUP AT THE LIP.
+ CHAPTER XXV. HUMBLE PIE.
+ CHAPTER XXVI. LOOSE ENDS.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW RECTOR.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+“LE ROI EST MORT!”
+
+
+The king was dead. But not at once, not until after some short
+breathing-space, such as was pleasant enough to those whose only
+concern with the succession lay in the shouting, could the cry of “Long
+live the king!” be raised. For a few days there was no rector of
+Claversham. The living was during this time in abeyance, or in the
+clouds, or in the lap of the law, or in any strange and inscrutable
+place you choose to name. It may have been in the prescience of the
+patron, and, if so, no locality could be more vague, the whereabouts of
+Lord Dynmore himself, to say nothing of his prescience, being as
+uncertain as possible. Messrs. Gearns & Baker, his solicitors and
+agents, should have known as much upon this point as any one; yet it
+was their habit to tell one inquirer that his lordship was in the
+Cordilleras, and another that he was on the slopes of the Andes, and
+another that he was at the forty-ninth parallel—quite
+indifferently—these places being all one to Messrs. Gearns & Baker,
+whose walk in life had lain for so many years about Lincoln’s Inn
+Fields that Clare Market had come to be their ideal of an uncivilized
+country.
+
+And more, if the whereabouts of Lord Dynmore could only be told in
+words rather far-sounding than definite, there was room for a doubt
+whether his prescience existed at all. For, according to his friends,
+there never was a man whose memory was so notably eccentric—not weak,
+but eccentric. And if his memory was impeccable, his prescience— But we
+grow wide of the mark. The question being merely where the living of
+Claversham was during the days which immediately followed Mr.
+Williams’s death, let it be said at once that we do not know.
+
+Mr. Williams was the late incumbent. He had been rector of the little
+Warwickshire town for nearly forty years; and although his people were
+ready enough to busy themselves with the question of his successor, he
+did not lack honor in his death. His had been a placid life, such as
+suited an indolent and easy-going man. “Let me sit upon one chair and
+put up my feet on another, and there I am,” he was once heard to say;
+and the town repeated the remark and chuckled over it. There were some
+who would have had the parish move more quickly, and who talked with a
+sneer of the old port-wine kind of parson. But if he had done little
+good, he had done less evil. He was kindly and open-handed, and he had
+not an enemy in the parish. He was regretted as much as such a man
+should be. Besides, people did not die commonly in Claversham. It was
+but once a year, or twice at the most, that any one who was any one
+passed away. And so, when the event did occur the most was made of it
+in an old-fashioned way. When Mr. Williams passed for the last time
+into his churchyard, there was no window which did not, by shutter or
+blind, mark its respect for him, not a tongue which wagged foul of his
+memory. And then the shutters were taken down and the blinds pulled up,
+and every one, from Mr. Clode, the curate, to the old people at
+Bourne’s Almhouses, who, having no affairs of their own, had the more
+time to discuss their neighbors’, asked, “Who is to be the new rector?”
+
+On the day of the funeral two of these old pensioners watched the
+curate’s tall form as he came gravely along the opposite side of the
+street, to fall in at the door of his lodgings with two ladies, one
+elderly, one young, who were passing so opportunely that it really
+seemed as if they might have been waiting for him. He and the elder
+lady—she was so plump of figure, so healthy of eye and cheek, and was
+dressed besides with such a comfortable richness that it did one good
+to look at her—began to talk in a subdued, decorous fashion, while the
+girl listened. He was telling them of the funeral, how well the
+archdeacon had read the service, and what a crowd of Dissenters had
+been present, and so on: and at last he came to the important question.
+
+“I hear, Mrs. Hammond,” he said, “that the living will be given to Mr.
+Herbert of Easthope, whom you know, I think? To me? Oh, no, I have not,
+and never had, any expectation of it. Please do not,” he added, with a
+slight smile and a shake of the head, “mention such a thing again.
+Leave me in my content.”
+
+“But why should you not have it?” said the young lady, with a pleasant
+persistence. “Every one in the parish would be glad if you were
+appointed. Could we not do something or say something—get up a petition
+or anything? Lord Dynmore ought, of course, to give it to you. I think
+some one should tell him what are the wishes of the parish. I do
+indeed!”
+
+She was a very pretty young lady, with bright brown eyes and hair and
+rather arch features, and the gentleman she was addressing had long
+found her face pleasant to look upon; but at this moment it really
+seemed to him as the face of an angel. Yet he only answered with a kind
+of depressed gratitude. “Thank you, Miss Hammond,” he said. “If good
+wishes could procure me the living, I should have an excellent reason
+for hoping. But as things are, it is not for me.”
+
+“Pooh! pooh!” said Mrs. Hammond cheerily, “who knows?” And then, after
+a few more words, they went on their way, and he turned into his rooms.
+
+The old women were still watching. “I don’t well know who’ll get it,
+Peggy,” said one, “but I be pretty sure of this, as he won’t! It isn’t
+his sort as gets ’em. It’s the lord’s friends, bless you!”
+
+So it appeared that she and Mr. Clode were of one mind on the matter.
+But was that really Mr. Clode’s opinion? It was when the crow opened
+its beak that it dropped the piece of cheese; and so to this day the
+wise man has no chance or expectation of this or that until he gets it.
+And if a patron or a patron’s solicitor has for some days had under his
+paperweight a letter written in a hand that bears a strange likeness to
+the wise man’s—a letter setting forth the latter’s claims and
+wisdom—what of that? That is a private matter, of course.
+
+Be that as it may, there was scarcely a person in Claversham who did
+not give some time that evening, and on subsequent evenings too, to the
+interesting question who was to be the new rector. The rector was a big
+factor in the town-life. Girls wondered whether he would be young, and
+hoped he would dance. Their mothers were sanguine that he would be
+unmarried, and their fathers that he would play whist. And one
+questioned whether he would buy Mr. Williams’s stock of port, and
+another whether he would dine late. And some trusted that he would let
+things be, and some hoped that he would cleanse the stables. And only
+one thing was certain and sure and immutably fixed—that, whoever he
+was, he would not be able to please everybody.
+
+Nay, the ripple of excitement spread far beyond Claversham. Not only at
+the archdeacon’s at Kingsford Carbonel, five miles away among the
+orchards and hopyards, was there much speculation upon the matter, but
+even at the Homfrays’, of Holberton, ten miles out beyond the Baer
+Hills, there was talk about it, and bets were made across the
+billiard-table. And in more distant vicarages and curacies, where the
+patron was in some degree known, there were flutterings of heart and
+anxious searchings of the “Guardian” and Crockford. Those who seemed to
+have some chance of the living grew despondent, and those who had none
+talked the thing over with their wives after the children had gone to
+bed, until they persuaded themselves that they would die at Claversham
+Rectory. Middle-aged men who had been at college with Lord Dynmore
+remembered that they had on one occasion rowed in the same boat with
+him; and young men who had danced with his niece thought secretly that,
+dear little woman as Emily or Annie was, they might have done better.
+And a hundred and eleven letters, written by people who knew less than
+Messrs. Gearns & Baker of the Andes, seeing that they did not know that
+Lord Dynmore was there or thereabouts, were received at Dynmore Park
+and forwarded to London, and duly made up into a large parcel with
+other correspondence by Messrs. Gearns & Baker, and so were despatched
+to the forty-ninth parallel—or thereabouts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+“VIVE LE ROI!”
+
+
+It was at the beginning of the second week in October that Mr. Williams
+died; and, the weather in those parts being peculiarly fine and bright
+for the time of year, men stood about in the churchyard with bare
+heads, and caught no colds. And it continued so for some days after the
+funeral. But not everywhere. Upon a morning, some three perhaps after
+the ceremony at Claversham, a young gentleman sat down to his
+breakfast, only a hundred and fifty miles away, under such different
+conditions—a bitter east wind, a dense fog, and a general murkiness of
+atmosphere—that one might have supposed his not over-plentiful meal to
+be laid in another planet.
+
+The air in the room—a meagrely furnished, much littered room, was
+yellow and choking, and the candles burned dimly in the midst of yellow
+halos. The fire seemed to be smouldering, and the owner of the room had
+to pay some attention to it before he sat down and found a letter lying
+beside his plate. He glanced at it doubtfully. “I do not know the
+handwriting,” he muttered, “and it is not a subscription, for they
+never come in an east wind. I am afraid it is a bill.”
+
+The letter was addressed to the Rev. Reginald Lindo, St. Barnabas
+Mission House, 383 East India Dock Road, London, E. After scrutinizing
+it for a moment, he pulled a candle toward him and tore open the
+envelope.
+
+He read the letter slowly, his teacup at his lips, and, though he was
+alone, his face grew crimson. When he had finished it he turned back
+and read it again, and then flung it down and, starting up, began to
+walk the room. “What a boy I am!” he muttered. “But it is almost
+incredible. Upon my honor it is almost incredible!”
+
+He was still at the height of his excitement, now sitting down to take
+a mouthful of breakfast and now leaping up to pace the room, when his
+housekeeper entered and said that a woman from Tamplin’s Rents wanted
+to see him.
+
+“What does she want, Mrs. Baxter?” he asked.
+
+“Husband is dying, sir,” the old lady replied briefly.
+
+“Do you know her at all?”
+
+“No, sir. She is as poor a piece as I have ever seen. She says that she
+could not have come out, for want of clothes, if it had not been for
+the fog. And they are not particular here, as I know—the hussies!”
+
+“Say that I shall be ready to go with her in less than five minutes,”
+the young clergyman answered. “And here! Give her some tea, Mrs.
+Baxter. The pot is half full.”
+
+He bustled about; but nevertheless the message and the business he was
+now upon had sobered him, and as he buttoned up the letter in his
+breast-pocket, his face was grave. He was a tall young man, fair, with
+regular features, and curling hair cut rather short. His eyes were blue
+and pleasantly bold; and in his every action and in his whole carriage
+there was a great appearance of confidence and self-possession. Taking
+a book and a small case from a side-table, he put on his overcoat and
+went out. A moment, and the dense fog swallowed him up, and with him
+the tattered bundle of rags, which had a husband, and very likely had
+nothing else in the world of her own. Tamplin’s Rents not affecting us,
+we may skip a few hours, and then go westward with him as far as the
+Temple, which in the East India Dock Road is considered very far west
+indeed by those who have ever heard of it.
+
+Here he sought a dingy staircase in Fig-tree Court, and, mounting to
+the second floor, stopped before a door which was adorned by about a
+dozen names, painted in white on a black ground. He knocked loudly,
+and, a small boy answering his summons with great alacrity and
+importance, our friend asked for Mr. Smith, and was promptly ushered
+into a room about nine feet square, in which, at a table covered with
+papers and open books, sat a small, dark-complexioned man, very keen
+and eager in appearance, who looked up with an air of annoyance.
+
+“Who is it, Fred?” he said impatiently, moving one of the candles,
+which the fog still rendered necessary, although it was high noon. “I
+am engaged at present.”
+
+“Mr. Lindo to see you, sir,” the boy announced, with a formality very
+funny in a groom of the chambers about four feet high.
+
+The little man’s countenance instantly changed, and he jumped up
+grinning. “Is it you, old boy?” he said. “Sit down, old fellow! I
+thought it might be my own solicitor, and it is well to be prepared,
+you know.”
+
+“But you are not really busy?” said the visitor, looking at him
+doubtfully.
+
+“Well, I am and I am not,” replied Mr. Smith; and, deftly tipping aside
+the books, he disclosed some slips of manuscript. “It is an article for
+the ‘Cornhill,’” he continued; “but whether it will ever appear there
+is another matter. You have come to lunch, of course? And now, what is
+your news?”
+
+He was so quick and eager that he reminded people who saw him for the
+first time of a rat. When they came to know him better, they found that
+a stauncher friend than Jack Smith was not to be found in the Temple.
+With this he had the reputation of being a clever, clear-headed man,
+and his sound common-sense was almost a proverb. Observing that Lindo
+did not answer him, he repeated, “Is anything amiss, old fellow?”
+
+“Well, not quite amiss,” Lindo answered, his face flushing a little.
+“But the fact is”—taking the letter from the breast-pocket—“that I have
+had the offer of a living, Jack.”
+
+Smith leaped up and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “By Jove! old
+man,” he exclaimed heartily, “I am glad of it! Right glad of it! You
+must have had enough of that slumming. But I hope it is a better living
+than mine,” he continued, with a comical glance round the tiny room.
+“Let us have a look! What is it? Two hundred and a house?”
+
+Lindo handed the letter to him. It was written from Lincoln’s Inn
+Fields, and was dated the preceding day. It ran thus:
+
+“Dear Sir:—We are instructed by our client, the Right Honorable the
+Earl of Dynmore, to invite your acceptance of the living of Claversham
+in the county of Warwick, vacant by the death on the 15th instant of
+the Rev. John Williams, the late incumbent. The living, of which his
+lordship is the patron, is a town rectory, of the approximate value of
+810_l_ per annum and a house. Our client is travelling in the United
+States, but we have the requisite authorities to proceed in due form
+and without delay, which in this matter is prejudicial. We beg to have
+the pleasure of receiving your acceptance at as early a date as
+possible,
+
+“And remain, dear Sir,
+
+“Your obedient servants,
+
+“Gearns & Baker.
+
+“To the Rev. Reginald Lindo, M.A.”
+
+The barrister read this letter with even greater surprise than seemed
+natural, and, when he had done, looked at his companion with wondering
+eyes. “Claversham!” he ejaculated. “Why, I know it well!”
+
+“Do you? I have never heard you mention it.”
+
+“I knew old Williams!” Jack continued, still in amaze. “Knew him well,
+and heard of his death, but little thought you were likely to succeed
+him. My dear fellow, it is a wonderful piece of good fortune!
+Wonderful! I shake you by the hand! I congratulate you heartily! But
+how did you come to know the high and mighty earl? Unbosom yourself, my
+dear boy!”
+
+“I do not know him—do not know him from Adam!” replied the young
+clergyman gravely.
+
+“You don’t mean it?”
+
+“I do. I have never seen him in my life.”
+
+Jack Smith whistled. “Are you sure it is not a hoax?” he said, with a
+serious face.
+
+“I think not,” the rector-elect replied. “Perhaps I have given you a
+wrong impression. I have had nothing to do with the earl; but my uncle
+was his tutor.”
+
+“Oh!” said Smith slowly, “that makes all the difference. What uncle?”
+
+“You have heard me speak of him. He was vicar of St. Gabriel’s,
+Aldgate. He died about a year ago—last October, I think. Lord Dynmore
+and he were good friends, and my uncle used often to stay at his place
+in Scotland. I suppose my name must have come up some time when they
+were talking.”
+
+“Likely enough,” assented the lawyer. “But for the earl to remember it,
+he must be one in a hundred!”
+
+“It is certainly very good of him,” Lindo replied, his cheek flushing.
+“If it had been a small country living, and my uncle had been alive to
+jog his elbow, I should not have been so much surprised.”
+
+“And you are just twenty-five!” Jack Smith observed, leaning back in
+his chair, and eyeing his friend with undisguised and whimsical
+admiration. “You will be the youngest rector in the Clergy List, I
+should think! And Claversham! By Jove, what a berth!”
+
+A queer expression of annoyance for a moment showed itself in Lindo’s
+face. “I say, Jack, stow that!” he said gently, and with a little
+shamefacedness. “I mean,” he continued, smoothing down the nap on his
+hat, “that I do not want to look at it altogether in that way, and I do
+not want others to regard it so.”
+
+“As a berth, you mean?” Jack said gravely, but with a twinkle in his
+eyes.
+
+“Well, from the loaves and fishes point of view,” Lindo commenced,
+beginning to walk up and down the room. “I do not think an officer,
+when he gets promotion, looks only at the increase in his pay. Of
+course I am glad that it is a good living, and that I shall have a
+house, and a good position, and all that. But I declare to you, Jack,
+believe me or not as you like, that if I did not feel that I could do
+the work as I hope, please God, to do it, I would not take it up—I
+would not, indeed. As it is, I feel the responsibility. I have been
+thinking about it as I walked down here, and upon my honor for a while
+I thought I ought to decline it.”
+
+“I would not do that!” said Gallio, dismissing the twinkle from his
+eye, and really respecting his old friend, perhaps, a little more than
+before. “You are not the man, I think, to shun either work or
+responsibility. Did I tell you,” he continued in a different tone,
+“that I had an uncle at Claversham?”
+
+“No,” said Lindo, surprised in his turn.
+
+“Yes, and I think he is one of your church wardens. His name is Bonamy,
+and he is a solicitor. His London agent is my only client,” Jack said
+jerkily.
+
+“And he is one of the church wardens! Well, that is strange—and jolly!”
+
+“Umph! Don’t you be too sure of that!” retorted the barrister sharply.
+“He is a—well, he has been very good to me, and he is my uncle, and I
+am not going to say anything against him. But I am not quite sure that
+I should like him for my church warden. _Your_ church warden! Why, it
+is like a fairy tale, old fellow!”
+
+And so it seemed to Lindo when, an hour later, the small boy, with the
+same portentous gravity of face, let him out and bade him good-day. As
+the young parson started eastward, along Fleet Street first, he looked
+at the moving things round him with new eyes, from a new standpoint,
+with a new curiosity. The passers-by were the same, but he was changed.
+He had lunched, and perhaps the material view of his position was
+uppermost, for those in the crowd who specially observed the tall young
+clergyman noticed in his bearing an air of calm importance and a strong
+sense of personal dignity, which led him to shun collisions, and even
+to avoid jostling his fellows, with peculiar care. The truth was that
+he had all the while before his eyes, as he walked, an announcement
+which was destined to appear in the “Guardian” of the following week:
+
+“The Rev. Reginald Lindo, M.A., St. Barnabas’ Mission, London, to be
+Rector of Claversham. Patron, the Earl of Dynmore.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+AN AWKWARD MEETING.
+
+
+A fortnight after this paragraph in the “Guardian” had filled
+Claversham with astonishment and Mr. Clode with a modest thankfulness
+that he was spared the burden of office, a little dark man—Jack Smith,
+in fact—drove briskly into Paddington Station, and, disregarding the
+offers of the porters, who stand waiting on the hither side of the
+journey like Charon by the Styx, and see at a glance who has the
+obolus, sprang from the hansom without assistance, and bustled on to
+the platform.
+
+Here he looked up and down as if he expected to meet some one, and
+then, glancing at the clock, found that he had a quarter of an hour to
+spare. He made at once for the bookstall, and, with a lavishness which
+would have surprised some of his friends, bought “Punch,” a little
+volume by Howells, the “Standard,” and finally, though he blushed as he
+asked for it, the “Queen.” He had just gathered his purchases together
+and was paying for them, when a high-pitched voice at his elbow made
+him start. “Why, Jack! what in the world are you buying all those
+papers for?” The speaker was a girl about thirteen years old, who in
+the hubbub had stolen unnoticed to his side.
+
+“Hullo, Daintry,” he answered. “Why did you not say that you were here
+before? I have been looking for you. Where is Kate? Oh, yes, I see
+her,” as a young lady turning over books at the farther end of the
+stall acknowledged his presence by a laughing nod. “You are here in
+good time,” he went on, while the younger girl affectionately slipped
+her arm through his.
+
+“Yes,” she said. “Your mother started us early. And so you have come to
+see us off, after all, Jack?”
+
+“Just so,” he answered drily. “Let us go to Kate.”
+
+They did so, the young lady meeting them halfway. “How kind of you to
+be here, Jack!” she said. “As you have come, will you look us out a
+comfortable compartment? That is the train over there. And please to
+put this, and this, and Daintry’s parcel in the corners for us.”
+
+This and this were a cloak and a shawl, and a few little matters in
+brown paper. In order to possess himself of them, Jack handed Kate the
+papers he was carrying.
+
+“Are they for me?” she said, gratefully indeed, but with a placid
+gratitude which was not perhaps what the donor wanted. “Oh, thank you.
+And this too? What is it?”
+
+“‘Their Wedding Journey,’” said Jack, with a shy twinkle in his eyes.
+
+“Is it pretty?” she answered dubiously. “It sounds silly; but you are
+supposed to be a judge. I think I should like ‘A Chance Acquaintance’
+better, though.”
+
+Of course the little book was changed, and Jack winced. But he had not
+time to think much about it, for he had to bustle away through the
+rising babel to secure seats for them in an empty compartment of the
+Oxford train, and see their luggage labelled and put in. This done, he
+hurried back, and pointed out to them the places he had taken. “Oh,
+dear, they are in a through carriage,” Kate said, stopping short and
+eyeing the board over the door.
+
+“Yes,” he answered. “I thought that that was what you wanted.”
+
+“No, I would rather go in another carriage, and change. We shall get to
+Claversham soon enough without travelling with Claversham people.”
+
+“Indeed we shall,” Daintry chimed in. “Let us go and find seats, and
+Jack will bring the things after us.”
+
+He assented meekly—very meekly for sharp Jack Smith—and presently came
+along with his arms full of parcels, to find them ensconced in the
+nearer seats of a compartment, which contained also one gentleman who
+was already deep in the “Times.” Jack, standing at the open door, could
+not see his face, for it was hidden by the newspaper, but he could see
+that his legs wore a youthful and reckless air; and he raised his
+eyebrows interrogatively. “Pooh!” whispered Daintry in answer. “How
+stupid you are! It is all right. I can see he is a clergyman by his
+boots!”
+
+Jack smiled at this assurance, and, putting in the things he was
+holding, shut the door and stood outside, looking first at the platform
+about him, on which all was flurry and confusion, and then at the
+interior of the carriage, which seemed in comparison peaceful and
+homelike. “I think I will come with you to Westbourne Park,” he said
+suddenly.
+
+“Nonsense, Jack!” Kate replied, with crushing decision. “We shall be
+there in five minutes, and you will have all the trouble of returning
+for nothing.”
+
+He acquiesced meekly—poor Jack! “Well,” he said, with a new effort at
+cheerfulness, “you will soon be at home, girls. Remember me to the
+governor. I am afraid you will be rather dull at first. You will have
+one scrap of excitement, however.”
+
+“What is that?” said Kate, very much as if she were prepared to
+depreciate it before she knew what it was.
+
+“The new rector!”
+
+“He will make very little difference to us!” the girl answered, with an
+accent almost of scorn. “Papa said in his letter that he thought it was
+a great pity a local man had not been appointed—some one who knew the
+place and the old ways. You say he is clever and nice; but either way
+it will not affect us much.”
+
+No one noticed that the “Times” newspaper in the far corner of the
+compartment rustled suspiciously, and that the clerical boots became
+agitated on a sudden, as though their wearer meditated a move; and, in
+ignorance of this, “I expect I shall hate him!” said Daintry calmly.
+
+“Come, you must not do that,” Jack remonstrated “You must remember that
+he is not only a very good fellow, but a great friend of mine.”
+
+“Then we ought indeed to spare him!” Kate said frankly, “for you have
+been very good to us and made our visit delightful.”
+
+His face flushed with pleasure even at those simple words of praise.
+“And you will write and tell me,” he continued eagerly, “that you have
+reached your journey’s end safely.”
+
+“One of us will,” was the answer. “Daintry,” Kate went on calmly, “will
+you remind me to write to Jack to-morrow evening?”
+
+His face fell sadly. So little would have made him happy. He looked
+down and kicked the step of the carriage, and made his tiny moan to
+himself before he spoke again. “Good-bye,” he said then. “They are
+coming to look at your tickets. You are due out in one minute.
+Good-bye, Daintry.”
+
+“Good-bye, Jack. Come and see us soon,” she cried earnestly, as she
+released his hand.
+
+“Good-bye, Kate.” Alas! Kate’s cheek did not show the slightest
+consciousness that his clasp was more than cousinly. She uttered her
+“Good-bye, Jack, and thank you so much,” very kindly, but her color
+never varied by the quarter of a tone, and her grasp was as firm and as
+devoid of shyness as his own.
+
+He had not much time to be miserable, however, then, for, the
+ticket-collector coming to the window, Jack had to fall back, and in
+doing so made a discovery. Kate, hunting for her ticket in one of those
+mysterious places in which ladies will put tickets, heard him utter an
+exclamation, and asked, “What is it, Jack?”
+
+To her surprise, the collector having by this time disappeared, he
+stretched out his hand through the window to some one beyond her. “Why,
+Lindo!” he cried, “is that you? I had not a notion of your identity. Of
+course you are going down to take possession.”
+
+Kate, trembling already with a horrible presentiment, turned her head.
+Yes, it was the clergyman in the corner who answered Jack’s greeting
+and rose to shake hands with him, the train being already in motion. “I
+did not recognize your voice out there,” he said, looking rather hot.
+
+“No? And I did not know you were going down to-day,” Jack answered,
+walking beside the train. “Let me introduce you to my cousins, Miss
+Bonamy and Daintry. I am sorry that I did not see you before. Good luck
+to you! Good-bye, Kate!”
+
+The train was moving faster and faster, and Jack was soon left behind
+on the platform gazing pathetically at the black tunnel which had
+swallowed it up. In the carriage there was silence, and in the heart of
+one at least of the passengers the most horrible vexation. Kate could
+have bitten out her tongue. She was conscious that the clergyman had
+bowed in acknowledgment of Jack’s introduction and had muttered
+something. But then he had sunk back in his corner, his face wearing,
+as it seemed to her, a frown of scornful annoyance. Even if nothing
+awkward had been said, she would still have shunned, for a certain
+reason, such a meeting as this with a new clergyman who did not yet
+know Claversham. But now she had aggravated the matter by her
+heedlessness. So she sat angry, and yet ashamed, with her lips pressed
+together and her eyes fixed upon the opposite cushion.
+
+For the Rev. Reginald, he had been by no means indifferent to the
+criticisms he had unfortunately overheard. Always possessed of a fairly
+good opinion of himself, he had lately been raising his standard to the
+rectorial height; and, being very human, he had come to think himself
+something of a personage. If Jack Smith had introduced him under the
+same circumstances to his aunt, there is no saying how far the
+acquaintance would have progressed or how long the new incumbent might
+have fretted and fumed. But presently he stole a look at Kate Bonamy
+and melted.
+
+He saw a girl, slightly above the middle height, graceful and rounded
+of figure, with a grave stateliness of carriage which oddly became her.
+Her complexion was rather pale, but it was clear and healthy, and there
+was even a freckle here and a freckle there which I never heard a man
+say that he would have had elsewhere. If her face was a trifle long,
+with a nose a little aquiline and curving lips too wide, yet it was a
+fair and dainty face, such as Englishmen love. The brown hair, which
+strayed on to the broad white brow and hung in a heavy loop upon her
+neck, had a natural waviness—the sole beauty on which she prided
+herself. For she could not see her eyes as others saw them—big gray
+eyes that from under long lashes looked out upon you, full of such
+purity and truth that men meeting their gaze straightway felt a desire
+to be better men and went away and tried—for half an hour. Such was
+Kate outwardly. Inwardly she had faults of course, and perhaps pride
+and a little temper were two of them.
+
+The rector was still admiring her askance, surprised to find that Jack
+Smith, who was not very handsome himself, had such a cousin, when
+Daintry roused him abruptly. For some moments she had been gazing at
+him, as at some unknown specimen, with no attempt to hide her interest.
+Now she said suddenly, “You are the new rector?”
+
+He answered stiffly that he was; being a good deal taken aback at being
+challenged in this way. Remonstrance, however, was out of the question,
+and Daintry for the moment said no more, though her gaze lost none of
+its embarrassing directness.
+
+But presently she began again. “I should think the dogs would like
+you,” she said deliberately, and much as if he had not been there to
+hear; “you look as if they would.”
+
+Silence again. The rector smiled fatuously. What was a beneficed
+clergyman, whose dignity was young and tender, to do, subjected to the
+criticism of unknown dogs? He tried to divert his thoughts by
+considering the pretty sage-green frock and the gray fur cape and hat
+to match which the elder girl was wearing. Doubtless she was taking the
+latest fashions down to Claversham, and fur capes and hats,
+indefinitely and mysteriously multiplying, would listen to him on
+Sundays from all the nearest pews. And Daintry was silent so long that
+he thought he had done with her. But no. “Do you think that you will
+like Claversham?” she asked, with an air of serious curiosity.
+
+“I trust I shall,” he said, a flush rising to his cheek.
+
+She took a moment to consider the answer conscientiously, and, thinking
+badly of it, remarked gravely, “I don’t think you will.”
+
+This was unbearable. The clergyman, full of a nervous dread lest the
+next question should be, “Do you think that they will like you at
+Claversham?” made a great show of resuming his newspaper. Kate,
+possessed by the same fear, shot an imploring glance at Daintry; but,
+seeing that the latter had only eyes for the stranger, hoped
+desperately for the best.
+
+Which was very bad. “It must be jolly,” remarked the unconscious
+tormentor, “to have eight hundred pounds a year, and be a rector!”
+
+“Daintry!” Kate cried in horror.
+
+“Why, what is the matter?” asked Daintry, turning suddenly to her
+sister with wide-open eyes. Her look of aggrieved astonishment at once
+overcame Lindo’s gravity, and he laughed aloud. He was not without a
+charming sense, still novel enough to be pleasing, that Daintry was
+right. It was jolly to be a rector and have eight hundred a year!
+
+That laugh came in happily. It seemed to sweep away the cobwebs of
+embarrassment which had lain so thickly about two of the party. Lindo
+began to talk pleasantly, pointing out this or that reach of the river,
+and Kate, meeting his cheery eyes, put aside a faint idea of
+apologizing which had been in her head, and replied frankly. He told
+them tales of summer voyages between lock and lock, and of long days
+idly spent in the Wargrave marshes; and, as the identification of
+Mapledurham and Pangbourne and Wittenham and Goring rendered it
+necessary that they should all cross and recross the carriage, they
+were soon on excellent terms with one another, or would have been if
+the rector had not still detected in Kate’s manner a slight stiffness
+for which he could not account. It puzzled him also to observe that,
+though they were ready, Daintry more particularly, to discuss the
+amusements of London and the goodness of cousin Jack, they both grew
+reticent when the conversation turned toward Claversham and its
+affairs.
+
+At Oxford he got out to go to the bookstall.
+
+“Jack was right,” said Daintry, looking after him. “He _is_ nice.”
+
+“Yes,” her sister allowed, rising and sitting down again in a restless
+fashion. “But I wish we had not fallen in with him, all the same.”
+
+“It cannot be helped now,” said Daintry, who was evidently prepared to
+accept the event with philosophy.
+
+Not so her sister. “We might go into another carriage,” she suggested.
+
+“That would be rude,” said Daintry calmly.
+
+The question was decided for them by the young clergyman’s return. He
+came along the platform, an animated look in his face. “Miss Bonamy,”
+he said, stopping at the open door with his hand extended, “there is
+some one in the refreshment-room whom I think that you would like to
+see. Mr. Gladstone is there, talking to the Duke of Westminster, and
+they are both eating buns like common mortals. Will you come and take a
+peep at them?”
+
+“I don’t think that we have time,” she objected.
+
+“There is sure to be time,” Daintry cried. “Now, Kate, come!” And she
+was down upon the platform in a moment.
+
+“The train is not due out for five minutes yet,” Lindo said, as he
+piloted them through the crowd to the doorway. “There, on the left by
+the fireplace,” he added.
+
+Kate glanced, and turned away satisfied. Not so Daintry. With rapt
+attention in her face, she strayed nearer and nearer to the great men,
+her eyes growing larger with each step.
+
+“She will be talking to them next,” said Kate, in a fidget.
+
+“Perhaps asking him if he likes Downing Street,” Lindo suggested slyly.
+“There, she is coming now,” he added, as Miss Daintry turned and came
+to them at last.
+
+“I wanted to make sure,” she said simply, seeing Kate’s impatience,
+“that I should know them again. That was all.”
+
+“Quite so; I hope you have succeeded,” Kate answered drily. “But, if we
+are not quick, we shall miss our train.” And she led the way back with
+more speed than dignity.
+
+“There is plenty of time—plenty of time,” Lindo answered, following
+them. He could not bear to see her pushing her way through the mixed
+crowd, and accepting so easily a footing of equality with it. He was
+one of those men to whom their womenkind are sacred. He took his time,
+therefore, and followed at his ease; only to see, when he emerged from
+the press, a long stretch of empty platform, three porters, and the
+tail of a departing train. “Good gracious!” he stammered, with dismay
+in his face. “What does it mean?”
+
+“It means,” Kate said, in an accent of sharp annoyance—she did not
+intend to spare him—“that you have made us miss our train, Mr. Lindo.
+And there is not another which reaches Claversham today!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+BIRDS IN THE WILDERNESS.
+
+
+“There! That was your fault!” said Daintry, turning from the departing
+train.
+
+The young rector could not deny it. He would have given anything for at
+least the appearance of being undisturbed; but the blood came into his
+cheek, and in his attempt to maintain his dignity he only succeeded in
+looking angry as well as confused and taken aback. He had certainly
+made a mess of his escort duty. What in the world had led him to go out
+of his way to make a fool of himself? he wondered. And with these
+Claversham people!
+
+“There may be a special train to-day,” Kate suggested suddenly. She had
+got over her first vexation, and perhaps repented that she had betrayed
+it so openly. “Or we may be allowed to go on by a luggage-train, Mr.
+Lindo. Will you kindly see?”
+
+He snatched at the relief which her proposal held out to him, and went
+away to inquire. But almost at once he was back again. “It is most
+vexatious!” he said loudly. “It is only three o’clock, and yet there is
+no way of getting to Claversham to-night! I am very sorry, but I never
+dreamed the company managed things so badly. Never!”
+
+“No,” said Kate drily.
+
+He winced and looked at her sharply, his vanity hurt again. But then he
+found that he could not keep it up. No doubt it was a ridiculous
+position for a beneficed clergyman, on his way to undertake the work of
+his life, to be delayed at a station with two girls; but, after all,
+for a young man to be angry with a young woman who is also pretty—well,
+the task is difficult. “I am afraid,” he said shyly, and yet with a
+kind of frankness, “that I have brought you into trouble, Miss Bonamy.
+As your sister says, it was my fault. Is it a matter of great
+consequence that you should reach home tonight?”
+
+“I am afraid that my father will be vexed,” she answered.
+
+“You must telegraph to him,” he rejoined. “I am afraid that is all I
+can suggest. And that done, you will have only one thing to
+consider—whether we shall stay the night here or go on to Birmingham.”
+
+Kate looked at him, her gray eyes very doubtful, and did not at once
+answer. He had clearly made up his mind to join his fortunes to theirs,
+while she, on her side, had reasons for shrinking from intimacy with
+him. But he seemed to consider it so much a matter of course that they
+should remain together and travel together, that she scarcely saw how
+to put things on a different footing. She knew, too, that she would get
+no help from Daintry, who already regarded their detention in the light
+of a capital joke.
+
+“What are you going to do yourself, Mr. Lindo?” she said at last, her
+manner rather chilling.
+
+He opened his eyes and smiled. “You discard me, then?” he said. “You
+have lost all faith in me, Miss Bonamy? Well, I deserve it after the
+scrape into which I have led you.”
+
+“I did not mean that,” she answered. “I wished to know if you had made
+any plans.”
+
+“Yes,” he replied—“to make amends, if you will let me take command of
+the party. We will stay in Oxford, and I will show you round the
+colleges.”
+
+“No?” exclaimed Daintry. “Will you? How jolly! And then?”
+
+“We will dine at the Mitre,” he answered, smiling, “if Miss Bonamy will
+permit me to manage everything. And then, if you leave here at
+nine-thirty to-morrow you will be at Claversham soon after twelve. Will
+that suit you?”
+
+Daintry’s face answered sufficiently for her. As for Kate, she was in a
+difficulty. She knew little of hotels: yet they must stop somewhere,
+and no doubt Mr. Lindo would take a great deal of trouble off her
+hands. But would it be proper to do as he proposed? She really did not
+know—only that it sounded odd. That it would not be wise she knew. She
+could answer that question at once. But how could she explain, and how
+tell him to go his way and leave them? And, after all, to see Oxford
+would be delightful; and he really was very pleasant, very different
+from the men she knew at home.
+
+“You are very good,” she said at length, with a grateful sigh—“if we
+have no choice but between Oxford and Birmingham.”
+
+“And no choice of guides at all,” he said, smiling, “you will take me.”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, looking away primly.
+
+Her reserve, however, did not last. Once through the station gates,
+that free holiday feeling which we have all experienced on being set
+down in an unknown town, with no duty before us save to explore it,
+soon possessed her; while he wished nothing better than to play the
+showman—a part we love. The day was fine and bright, though cold. She
+had eyes for beauty and a soul for the past, and soon forgot herself;
+and he, piloting the sisters through Magdalen Walks, now strewn with
+leaves, or displaying with pride the staircase of Christ Church, the
+quaint library of Merton, or the ancient front of John’s, forgot
+himself also, and especially his new-born dignity, in which he had
+lived rather too much, perhaps, during the last three weeks. He showed
+himself in his true colors—the colors known to his intimate friends—and
+was so bright and cheery that Kate found herself talking to him in
+utter forgetfulness of his position and theirs. The girl frankly sighed
+when darkness fell and they had to go into the house, their curiosity
+still unsated.
+
+She thought it was all over. But, lo! there was a cheery fire awaiting
+them in the “house” room (he had looked in for a few minutes on their
+first arrival and given his orders), and before it a little table laid
+for three was sparkling with plate and glass. Nay, there were two cups
+of tea ready on a side-table, for it wanted an hour yet of dinnertime.
+Altogether, as Daintry naïvely told him, “even Jack could not have made
+it nicer for us.”
+
+“Jack is a favorite of yours?” he said, laughing.
+
+“I should think so!” Daintry answered, in wonder. “There is no one like
+Jack.”
+
+“After that I shall take myself off,” he replied. “I really want to
+call on a friend, Miss Bonamy. But if I may join you at dinner——”
+
+“Oh, do!” she said impulsively. Then, more shyly, she added, “We shall
+be very glad if you will, Mr. Lindo.”
+
+He felt singularly pleased with himself as he turned the windy corner
+of the Broad. It was pleasant to be in Oxford again, a beneficed
+clergyman. Pleasant to have such a future to look forward to, such a
+holiday moment to enjoy. Pleasant to anticipate the cheery meal and the
+girl’s smile, half shy, half grateful. And Kate?—she remained before
+the fire, saying little because Daintry’s tongue gave few openings, but
+thinking a good deal. Once she did speak. “It won’t last,” she said
+pettishly.
+
+“Why, Kate? Do you think he will be different at Claversham?” Daintry
+protested.
+
+“Of course he will!” She spoke with a little scorn in her voice, and
+that sort of decision which we use when we wish to crush down our own
+unwarranted hopes.
+
+“But he is nice,” Daintry persisted. “You do think so, Kate, don’t
+you?”
+
+“Oh, yes, he is very nice,” she said drily. “But he will be in the
+Hammond set at home, and we shall see nothing of him.”
+
+But presently he was back, and Kate found it impossible to resist the
+charm. He ladled the soup and dispensed the mutton-chops with a gaiety
+and boyish glee which were really the stored-up effervescence of weeks,
+the ebullition of the long-repressed delight which he took in his
+promotion. He learned casually that the girls had been in London for
+more than a month staying with Jack’s mother in Bayswater, and that
+they were very sorry to be upon their road home.
+
+“And yet,” he said—this was toward the end of dinner—“I have been told
+that your town is a very picturesque one. But I fancy that we never
+appreciate our home as we do a place strange to us.”
+
+“Very likely that is so,” Kate answered quietly. And then a little
+pause ensued, such as he had observed several times before, and come to
+connect with any mention of Claversham. The girls’ tongues would run on
+frankly and pleasantly enough about their London visit, or Mr.
+Gladstone; but let him bring the talk round to his parish and its
+people, and forthwith something of reserve seemed to come between him
+and them until the conversation strayed afield again.
+
+After the others had finished, he still toyed with his meal, partly in
+lazy enjoyment of the time, partly as an excuse for staying with them.
+They were sitting in a momentary silence, when a boy passed the window
+chanting a ditty at the top of his voice. The doggrel came clearly to
+their ears——
+
+ Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,
+
+Birds in the wilderness, birds in the wilderness;
+
+Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,
+
+Samuel asking for more.
+
+
+As the sound passed on the young man looked up, a mischievous twinkle
+in his eyes, and met their eyes, and all three burst into a merry peal
+of laughter. They were the birds in the wilderness, sitting there in
+the circle of light, in the strange room in the strange town, almost as
+intimate as if they had known one another for years, or had been a week
+at sea together.
+
+But Kate, having acknowledged by that pleasant outburst her sense of
+the oddity of the position, rose from the table, and the rector had to
+say good-night, explaining at the same time that he should not travel
+with them next morning, but intended to go on by a later train, as his
+friend wished to see more of him. Nevertheless, he said he should be up
+to breakfast with them and should see them off. And in this resolution
+he persisted, notwithstanding Kate’s protest, which perhaps was not
+very violent.
+
+Notwithstanding, he was a little late next morning. When he came down
+he found them already seated in the coffee-room. There were others
+breakfasting here and there in the room, chiefly upon toast-racks and
+newspapers, and he did not at once observe that the gentleman standing
+with his back set negligently against the mantelpiece was talking to
+Kate. Arrived at the table, however, he saw that it was so; and the
+cheery greeting on his lips faded into a commonplace “Good-morning,
+Miss Bonamy.” He took no apparent notice of the stranger as he added,
+“I am afraid I am rather late.”
+
+The intruder, a short dark-whiskered man between thirty and forty,
+seemed to the full as much surprised by the clergyman’s appearance as
+Lindo was by his, and as little able to hide the feeling as Kate
+herself to control the color which rose in her cheeks. She gave Mr.
+Lindo his tea in silence, and then with an obvious effort introduced
+the two men. “This is Dr. Gregg of Claversham—Mr. Lindo,” she said.
+
+Lindo rose and shook hands. “Mr. Lindo the younger, I presume?” said
+the doctor, with a bow and a swagger intended to show that he was quite
+at his ease.
+
+“The only one, I am afraid,” replied the rector, smiling. Though he by
+no means liked the look of the man.
+
+“Did I rightly catch your name?” was the answer—“‘Mr. Lindo?’”
+
+“Yes,” said the rector again, opening his eyes.
+
+“But—you are not—you do not mean to say that you are the new rector?”
+pronounced the dark man abruptly, and with a kind of aggressiveness
+which seemed his most striking quality—“the rector of Claversham, I
+mean?”
+
+“I believe so,” said Lindo quietly. “You want some more water, do you
+not, Miss Bonamy?” he continued. “Let me ring the bell.” He rose and
+crossed the room to do so. The truth was, he hated the newcomer
+already. His first sentence had been enough. His manner was not the
+manner of the men with whom Lindo had mixed, and the rector felt almost
+angry with Kate for introducing Gregg—-albeit his parishioner—to him,
+and quite angry with her for suffering the doctor to address her with
+the familiarity he seemed to affect.
+
+And Kate, her eyes downcast, knew by instinct how it was with him, and
+what he was thinking. “I have been telling Dr. Gregg,” she said
+hurriedly, when he returned, “how we missed our train yesterday.”
+
+“Rather how I missed it for you,” Lindo answered gravely, much engaged
+apparently with his breakfast.
+
+“Ah, yes, it was very funny!” fired off the doctor, watching each
+mouthful they ate. Daintry had finished, and was sitting back in her
+chair kicking the leg of the table monotonously; not in the best of
+tempers apparently. “Very funny indeed!” the doctor continued. “An
+accident, I hope?” with a little sniggling laugh.
+
+“Yes!” said the rector, looking up at him with a black brow and
+steadfast eyes—“it was an accident.”
+
+Gregg was a little cowed by the look, and in a moment, with a muttered
+word or two, fidgeted himself away, cursing the general
+superciliousness of parsons and the quiet airs of this one in
+particular. He was a little dog-in-the-mangerish man, ill-bred, and,
+like most ill-bred men, resentful of breeding in others. The fact that
+he had a sneaking liking for Kate did not tend to lessen his disgustful
+wonder how the Bonamy girls and the new rector came to be travelling
+together—which, indeed, to any Claversham person would have seemed a
+portent. But, then, Lindo did not know that.
+
+The objectionable item removed, and the temptation to remark upon him
+overcome, Lindo soon recovered his good temper, and rattled away so
+pleasantly that the train time seemed to all of them to come very
+quickly. “There,” he said, as he handed the last of Kate’s books into
+the railway-carriage, “now I have done something to make amends for my
+fault, I trust. One thing more I can do. When you get home you need not
+spare me. You can put it all on my shoulders, Miss Bonamy.”
+
+“Thank you,” Kate answered demurely.
+
+“You are going to do so, I see,” he said, laughing. “I fear my
+character will reach Claversham before me.”
+
+“I do not think we shall spread it very widely,” she answered in a
+peculiar tone, which he naturally misunderstood.
+
+The train was already in motion then, and he shook hands with her as he
+walked beside it. “Goodbye,” he said. And then he added in a lower
+tone—he was such a very young rector—“I hope to see very much of you in
+the future, Miss Bonamy.”
+
+Kate sank back in her seat, her cheek a shade warmer. And in a moment
+he was alone upon the platform.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+“REGINALD LINDO, 1850.”
+
+
+Long before the later train by which the rector came on arrived at the
+Claversham station, the Rev. Stephen Clode was waiting on the platform.
+The curate was a tall, dark man, somewhat over thirty, with a strong
+rugged face and a bush of stiff black hair standing up from his
+forehead. He had been at Claversham three years, enjoying all the
+importance which old Mr. Williams’s long illness naturally gave to his
+curate and _locum tenens_; and, though the town was agreed that his
+chagrin at having a new rector set over his head was great, it must be
+admitted that he concealed it with admirable skill. More than one
+letter had passed between him and the new incumbent, and, in securing
+for the latter Mr. Williams’s good old-fashioned furniture, and in
+other ways, he had made himself very useful to Lindo. But the two had
+not met, and consequently the curate viewed the approaching train with
+lively, though secret, curiosity.
+
+It came, the bell rang, the porter cried, “Claversham! Claversham!” and
+the curate walked down it, past the carriage-windows, looking for the
+man he had come to meet. Half-a-dozen people stepped out, and for a
+moment there was a mimic tumult on the little platform; but nowhere
+amid it all could Clode see any one like the new rector. “He has missed
+another train!” he muttered to himself in contemptuous wonder; and he
+was already casting a last look round him before turning on his heel,
+when a tall, fair young man, in a clerical overcoat, who had been one
+of the first to alight, stepped up to him. “Am I speaking to Mr.
+Clode?” said the stranger pleasantly. And he lifted his hat.
+
+“Certainly,” the curate answered. “I am Mr. Clode. But I fear I have
+not the——”
+
+“No, I know,” replied the other, smiling, and at the same time holding
+out his hand. “Though, indeed, I hoped that you might have been here on
+purpose to meet me. My name is Lindo.”
+
+The curate uttered an exclamation of surprise; and, hastily returning
+the proffered grip, fixed his black eyes curiously on his new friend.
+“Mr. Lindo did not mention that you were with him,” he answered in a
+tone of some embarrassment. “But, there, let me see to your luggage. Is
+it all here?”
+
+“Yes, I think so,” Lindo answered, tapping one article after another
+with his umbrella, and giving the stationmaster a pleasant “Good-day!”
+“Is there an omnibus or anything?”
+
+“Yes,” Clode said; “it will be all right. They know where to take it.
+You will walk up with me, perhaps. It is about a quarter of a mile to
+the rectory.”
+
+The new comer assented gladly, and the two passed out of the station
+together. Lindo let his eye travel up the wide steep street before him,
+until it rested on the noble tower which crowned the little hill and
+looked down now, as it had looked down for five centuries, on the red
+roofs clustering about it. His tower! His church! Even his companion
+did not remark, so slight was the action, that, as he passed out of the
+station and looked up, he lifted his hat for a second.
+
+“And where is your father?” Clode asked. “Was he delayed by business?
+Or perhaps,” he added, dubiously scanning him, “you are Mr. Lindo’s
+brother?”
+
+“I _am_ Mr. Lindo!” said our friend, turning in astonishment and
+looking at his companion.
+
+“The rector?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+It was the curate’s turn to stare now, and he did so—his face flushing
+darkly and his eyes wide opened for once. He even seemed for a moment
+to be stricken dumb with surprise and emotion. “Indeed!” he said at
+last, in a half stifled voice which he vainly strove to control.
+“Indeed! I beg your pardon. I had thought—I don’t know why—I mean that
+I had expected to see an older man.”
+
+“I am sorry you are disappointed,” the rector replied, smiling
+ruefully. “I am beginning to think I am rather young, for you are not
+the first to-day who has made that mistake.”
+
+The curate did not answer, and the two walked on in silence, feeling
+somewhat awkward. Clode, indeed, was raging inwardly. By one thing and
+another he had been led to expect a man past middle life, and the only
+Clergy List in the parish, being three years old and containing the
+name of Lindo’s uncle only, had confirmed him in the error. He had
+never conceived the idea that the man set over his head would be a
+fledgling, scarcely a year in priest’s orders, or he would have gone
+elsewhere. He would never have stayed to be at the beck and call of
+such a puppy as this! He felt now that he had been entrapped, and he
+chafed inwardly to such an extent that he did not dare to speak. To
+have this young fellow, six or seven years his junior, set over him
+would humiliate him in the eyes of all those before whom he had long
+played a different part!
+
+In a minor degree Lindo was also vexed—not only because he was
+sufficiently sensitive to enter into the other’s feelings, but also
+because he foresaw trouble ahead. It was annoying, too, to be received
+at each new _rencontre_ as a surprise—as the reverse of all that had
+been expected and all that had been, as he feared, hoped.
+
+“You will find the rectory a very comfortable house,” said the curate
+at last, his mind fully made up now that he would leave at the earliest
+possible date. “Warm and old-fashioned. Rough-cast outside. Many of the
+rooms are panelled.”
+
+“It looks out on the churchyard, I believe,” replied the rector, with
+the same labored politeness.
+
+“Yes, it stands high. The view from the windows at the back is
+pleasant. The front is perhaps a little gloomy—in winter at least.”
+
+Near the top of the street a quaint, narrow flight of steps conducted
+them to the churchyard—an airy, elevated place, surrounded on three
+sides by the church and houses, but open on the fourth, where a
+terraced walk, running along the summit of the old town wall, admitted
+the southern sun and afforded a wide view of plain and hill. The two
+men crossed the churchyard, the new rector looking about him with
+curiosity and a little awe, his companion marching straight onward, his
+strongly-marked face set ominously. He would go! He would go at the
+earliest possible minute! he was thinking.
+
+It did not affect him nor alter his resolution that in the wooden porch
+of the old rectory the new rector turned to him and shyly, yet with
+real feeling, besought his help and advice in the work before him. The
+young clergyman, commonly so self-confident, was moved, and moved
+deeply, by the evening light and his strange and solemn surroundings.
+Stephen Clode’s answer was in the affirmative—it could hardly have been
+other; and it was spoken becomingly, if a little coldly, in view of the
+rector’s advances; but, even while the curate spoke it, he was
+considering how he might best escape from Claversham. Still his Yea,
+yea, comforted his companion and lightened his momentary apprehensions.
+
+Nor was the curate, when he had recovered from the first shock of
+surprise and disgust, so foolish as to betray his feelings by wanton
+churlishness. He parted from his companion at the door, leaving him to
+the welcome of Mrs. Baker, the rector’s London housekeeper, who had
+come down two days before; but at the same time he consented readily to
+return at half-past six and share his dinner, and gave him in the
+course of the meal all the information in his power. Left to himself,
+the rector went over the house under Mrs. Baker’s guidance, and, as he
+trod the polished floors, could not but feel some access of
+self-importance. The panelled hall, with its wide oak staircase, fed
+this, and the spacious sombrely-furnished library, with its books and
+busts, its antique clock and one good engraving, and its lofty windows
+opening upon the garden. So, in a less degree, did the long
+oak-panelled dining-room and a smaller sitting-room which looked to the
+front and the churchyard; and the drawing-room, which was situated over
+the library, and seemed the larger because Mr. Williams had furnished
+it but scantily and lived in it less. Then there were six or seven
+bedrooms, and in the garden a stone basin and fountain. Altogether,
+when the rector descended after washing his hands, and stood on the
+library hearth-rug looking about him, he would have been more than
+human if he had not, with a feeling of thankfulness, entertained also
+some faint sense of self-congratulation and personal desert. Nor,
+probably, would Mr. Clode have been human if, coming in and finding the
+younger man standing on that hearth-rug, and betraying in his face and
+attitude something of his thoughts, he on his part had not felt a
+degree of envy and antagonism. The man was so prosperous, so
+self-contented, so conscious of his own merit and success.
+
+But the curate was too wise to betray this feeling; and, laying himself
+out to be pleasant, he had, before the little meal was over, so far
+ingratiated himself with his entertainer that the rector was greatly
+surprised when he presently learned that Clode had not been to a
+university. “You astonish me,” he said, “for you have so completely the
+manner of a ’varsity-man!”
+
+The observation was a little too gracious, a little wanting in tact,
+but it would not have hurt the curate had he not been at the moment in
+a state of irritation. As it was, Clode treasured it up, and never got
+rid of the feeling that the Oxford man looked down upon him because he
+had been only at Wells; whereas Lindo, with some prejudices and
+sufficiently prone to judge his fellows, had far too high an opinion of
+himself to be bound by such distinctions, but was just as likely to
+make a friend of a ploughboy, if he liked him, as of a Christchurch
+man. After that speech, however, the curate was more than ever resolved
+to go, and go quickly.
+
+But, when dinner was over and he was about to take his leave, he
+happened to pick up, as he moved about the room, a small prayer-book
+which Lindo had just unpacked, and which was lying on the
+writing-table. Clode idly looked into it as he talked, and, seeing on
+the flyleaf “Reginald Lindo, 1850,” took occasion, when he had done
+with the subject in hand, to discuss it. “Surely,” he said, holding it
+up, “you did not possess this in 1850, Mr. Lindo!”
+
+“Hardly,” Lindo answered, laughing. “I was not born until ’54.”
+
+“Then who?”
+
+“It was my uncle’s,” the rector explained. “I was his god-son, and his
+name was mine also.”
+
+“Is he alive, may I ask?” the curate pursued, looking at the title-page
+as if he saw something curious there—though, indeed, what he saw was
+not new to him; only from it he had suddenly deduced a thought.
+
+“No, he died about a year ago—nearly a year ago, I think,” Lindo
+answered carelessly, and without the least suspicion. “He was always
+particularly kind to me, and I use that book a good deal. I must have
+it rebound.”
+
+“Yes,” Clode said mechanically; “it wants rebinding if you value it.”
+
+“I shall have it done. And a lot of these books,” the rector continued,
+looking at old Mr. Williams’s shelves, “want their clothes renewing. I
+shall have them all looked to, I think.” He had a pleasant sense that
+this was in his power. The cost of the furniture and library had made a
+hole in his not very large private means; but that mattered little now.
+Eight hundred a year, paid quarterly, will bind a book or two.
+
+Had the curate been attending, he would have read Lindo’s thoughts with
+ease. But Clode was pursuing a train of reflections of his own, and so
+was spared this pang. “Your uncle was an old man, I suppose,” he said.
+“I think I observed in the Clergy List that he had been in orders about
+forty years.”
+
+“Not quite so long as that,” Lindo replied. “He was sixty-four when he
+died. He had been Lord Dynmore’s private tutor you know, though they
+were almost of an age.”
+
+“Indeed,” the curate rejoined, still with that thoughtful look on his
+face. “You knew Lord Dynmore through him, I suppose, then, Mr. Lindo?”
+
+“Well, I got the living through him, if that what you mean,” Lindo said
+frankly. “But I do not think that I ever met Lord Dynmore. Certainly I
+should not know him from Adam.”
+
+“Ah!” said the curate, “ah! indeed!” He smiled as he gazed into the
+fire, and stroked his chin. In the other’s place, he thought, he would
+have been more reticent. He would not have disclaimed, though he might
+not have claimed, acquaintance with Lord Dynmore. He would have left
+the thing shadowy, to be defined by others as they pleased. Thinking
+thus, he got up somewhat abruptly, and wished Lindo good-night. A cool
+observer, indeed, might have noticed—but the rector did not—a change in
+his manner as he did so—a little accession of familiarity, which did
+seem not far removed from a delicate kind of contempt. The change was
+subtle, but one thing was certain. Stephen Clode had no longer any
+intention of leaving Claversham in a hurry. That resolve was gone.
+
+Once out of the house, he passed quickly from the churchyard by a
+narrow lane leading to an irregular open space quaintly called “The Top
+of the Town.” Here were his own lodgings, on the first-floor over a
+stationer’s; but he did not enter them. Instead, he strode on toward
+the farther and darker side of the square, where were no buildings, but
+a belt of tall trees stood up, gaunt and rustling in the night wind
+above a line of wall. Through the trees the lights of a large house
+were visible. He walked up the avenue which led to the door and,
+ringing loudly, was at once admitted.
+
+The sound of the bell came to the ears of two ladies who had been for
+some time placidly expecting it. They were seated in a small but
+charming room filled with soft, shaded light and warmth and color, an
+open piano and dainty pictures and china, and a well-littered
+writing-table all contributing to the air of accustomed luxury which
+pervaded it. The elder lady—that Mrs. Hammond whom we saw talking to
+the curate on the day of the old rector’s funeral—looked up expectantly
+as Mr. Clode entered, and, extending to him a podgy white hand covered
+with rings, began to chide him in a rich full voice for being so late.
+“I have been dying,” she said cheerfully, “to hear what is the fate
+before us, Mr. Clode. What is he like?”
+
+“Well,” he answered, taking with a word of thanks the cup of tea which
+Laura offered him, “I have one surprise in store for you. He is
+comparatively young.”
+
+“Sixty?” said Mrs. Hammond interrogatively.
+
+“Forty?” said Laura, raising her eyebrows.
+
+“No,” Clode replied, smiling and stirring his tea, “you must guess
+again. He is twenty-six.”
+
+“Twenty-six! You are joking,” exclaimed the elder lady. While Laura
+opened her eyes very wide, but said nothing yet.
+
+“No,” said the curate. “He told me himself that he was not born until
+1854.”
+
+The two ladies were loud in their surprise then, while for a moment the
+curate sipped his tea in silence. The brass kettle hissed and bubbled
+on the hob. The tea-set twinkled cheerfully on the wicker table, and
+faint scents of flowers and fabrics filled the room with an atmosphere
+which he had long come to associate with Laura. It was Laura Hammond,
+indeed, who had introduced him to this new world. The son of an
+accountant living in a small Lincolnshire town, he owed his clerical
+profession to his mother’s ardent wish that he should rise in the
+world. His father was not wealthy, and, before he came as curate to
+Claversham, Mr. Clode had had no experience of society. Then,
+alighting: on a sudden in the midst of much such a small town as his
+native place, he found himself astonishingly transmogrified into a
+person of social importance. He found every door open to him, and among
+them the Hammonds’, who were admitted to be the first people in the
+town. He fell in easily enough with the “new learning,” but the central
+figure in the novel pleasant world of refinement continued throughout
+to be Laura Hammond.
+
+Much petting had somewhat spoiled him, and it annoyed him now, as he
+sat sipping his tea, to observe that the ladies were far from
+displeased with his tidings. “If he is a young man, he is sure not to
+be evangelical,” said Mrs. Hammond decisively. “That is well. That is a
+comfort, at any rate.”
+
+“He will play tennis, I dare say,” said Laura.
+
+“And Mr. Bonamy will be kept in some order now,” Mrs. Hammond
+continued. “Not that I am blaming you, Mr. Clode,” she added
+graciously—indeed, the curate was a great favorite with her, “but in
+your position you could do nothing with a man so impracticable.”
+
+“He really will be an acquisition,” cried Laura gleefully, her brown
+eyes shining in the firelight. And she made her tiny lace handkerchief
+into a ball and flung it up—and did not catch it, for, with all her
+talk of lawn-tennis, she was no great player. Her _rôle_ lay rather in
+the drawing-room. She was as fond of comfort as a cat, and loved the
+fire with the love of a dog, and was, in a word, pre-eminently
+feminine, delighting to surround herself with all such things as tended
+to set off this side of her nature. “But now,” she continued briskly,
+when the curate had recovered her handkerchief for her, “tell me what
+you think of him. Is he nice?”
+
+“Certainly; I should say so,” the curate answered, smiling.
+
+But, though he smiled, he became silent again. He was reflecting, with
+well-hidden bitterness, that Lindo would not only override him in the
+parish, but would be his rival in the particular inner clique which he
+affected—perhaps his rival with Laura. The thought awoke the worst
+nature of the man. Up to this time, though he had not been true, though
+he had kept back at Claversham details of his past history which a
+frank man would have avowed, though in the process of assimilating
+himself to his new surroundings he had been over-pliant, he had not
+been guilty of any baseness which had seemed to him a baseness, which
+had outraged his own conscience. But, as he reflected on the wrong
+which this young stranger was threatening to do him, he felt himself
+capable of much.
+
+“Mrs. Hammond,” he said suddenly, “may I ask if you have destroyed Lord
+Dynmore’s letter which you showed me last week?”
+
+“Destroyed Lord Dynmore’s letter!” Laura answered, speaking for her
+mother in a tone of comic surprise. “Do you think, sir, that we get
+peers’ autographs every day of the week?”
+
+“No,” Mrs. Hammond said, waving aside her daughter’s flippancy and
+speaking with some stateliness. “It is not destroyed, though such
+things are not so rare with us as Laura pretends. But why do you ask?”
+
+“Because the rector was not sure when Lord Dynmore meant to return to
+England,” Clode explained readily. “And I thought he mentioned the date
+in his letter to you, Mrs. Hammond.”
+
+“I do not think so,” said Mrs. Hammond.
+
+“Might I look?”
+
+“Of course,” was the answer. “Will you find it, Laura? I think it is
+under the malachite weight in the other room.”
+
+It was, sitting there in solitary majesty. Laura opened it, and took
+the liberty of glancing through it first. Then she gave it to him.
+“There, you unbelieving man,” she said, “you can look. But he does not
+say a word about his return.”
+
+The curate read rapidly until he came to one sentence, and on this his
+eye dwelt a moment. “I hear with regret,” it ran, “that poor Williams
+is not long for this world. When he goes I shall send you an old friend
+of mine. I trust he will become an old friend of yours also.” Clode
+barely glanced at the rest of the letter, but, as he handed it back, he
+informed himself that it was dated in America two days before Mr.
+Williams’s death.
+
+“No,” he admitted, “I was wrong. I thought he had said when he would
+return.”
+
+“And you are satisfied?” said Laura.
+
+“Perfectly,” he answered. “Perfectly!” with a little unnecessary
+emphasis.
+
+He lingered long enough to give them a personal description of the
+new-comer—speaking always of him in words of praise—and then he took
+his leave. As his hand met Laura’s, his face flushed ever so slightly
+and his dark eyes glowed; and the girl, as she turned away, smiled
+furtively, knowing well, though he had never spoken, that she was the
+cause of this. So she was, but in part only. At that moment the curate
+saw something besides Laura—he saw across a narrow strait of trouble
+the fairer land of preferment, his footing on which once gained he
+might pretend to her and to many other pleasant things at present
+beyond his reach.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+THE BONAMYS AT HOME.
+
+
+Lindo made his first exploration of the neighborhood, not on the day
+after his arrival, which was taken up with his induction by the
+archdeacon and with other matters, but on the day after that. He chose
+to avoid the streets, in which he felt somewhat shy, so polite were the
+attentions and so curious the glances of his parishioners; and he
+selected instead a lane which, starting from the churchyard, seemed to
+plunge at once into the country. It was a pleasant lane. It lay deep
+sunk in a cutting through the sandstone rock—a cutting first formed,
+perhaps, when the great stones for the building of the church were
+dragged up that way. He paused halfway down the slope to look about him
+curiously, and was still standing when some one came round the corner
+before him. It was Kate Bonamy. He saw the girl’s cheek—she was
+alone—flush ever so slightly as their eyes met; and he noticed, too,
+that to all appearance she would have passed him with a bow had he not
+placed himself in her way. “Come,” he said, laughing frankly as he held
+out his hand, “you must not cut me, Miss Bonamy! Let me tell you, you
+have quite the aspect of an old friend, for until now I have not seen
+one face since I came here that was not absolutely new to me.”
+
+“It must feel strange, no doubt,” she murmured.
+
+“It is. _I_ feel strange!” he replied. “I want you to tell me where
+this road goes to, if you please. I am so strange, I do not even know
+that.”
+
+“Kingsford Carbonel,” she answered briefly.
+
+“Ah! The archdeacon lives there, does he not?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And the distance, please, is——?”
+
+“Three miles.”
+
+“Thank you,” he said. “Really you are as concise as a mile-stone, Miss
+Bonamy. And now let me remind you,” he continued—there was an air of “I
+am going on this moment” about her, which provoked him to detain her
+the longer—“that you have not yet asked me what I think of Claversham.”
+
+“I would rather ask you in a month’s time,” Kate answered quietly,
+holding out her hand to take leave. “Though it is already reported in
+the town that you will only stay a year, Mr. Lindo.”
+
+“I shall only stay a year!” the rector repeated in astonishment.
+
+“Certainly,” she answered, smiling, and relapsing for a moment into the
+pleasant frankness of that day at Oxford—“only a year; your days are
+already numbered.”
+
+“What do you mean?” he said point-blank.
+
+“Have you never heard the old tradition that as many times as a
+clergyman sounds the bell at his induction, so many years will he
+remain in the living? And the report in Claversham is that you rang it
+only once.”
+
+“You did not hear it yourself?” he said, catching her eyes suddenly, a
+lurking smile in his own.
+
+Her color rose faintly. “I am not sure,” she said. Then, meeting his
+eyes boldly, she added in a different tone, “Yes, I did hear it.”
+
+“Only once?”
+
+She nodded.
+
+“Oh, that is sad,” he answered. “Well, the tradition is new to me. If I
+had known it,” he added, laughing, “I should have tolled the bell at
+least fifty times. Clode should have instructed me; but I suppose he
+thought I knew. I remember now that the archdeacon did say something
+afterward, but I did not understand the reference. You know the
+archdeacon, Miss Bonamy, I suppose?”
+
+“No,” said Kate, growing stiff again.
+
+“Do you not? Well, at any rate you can tell me where Mrs. Hammond
+lives. She has kindly asked me to dine with her on Tuesday. I put my
+acceptance in my pocket, and thought I would deliver it myself when I
+came back from my walk.”
+
+“Mrs. Hammond lives at the Town House,” Kate answered. “It is the large
+house among the trees by the top of the town. You cannot mistake it.”
+
+“Shall I have the pleasure of meeting you there?” he asked, holding out
+his hand at last.
+
+“No; I do not know Mrs. Hammond,” Miss Bonamy said with decision.
+“Good-day, Mr. Lindo.” And she was gone; rather abruptly at last.
+
+“That is odd—very odd,” Lindo reflected as, continuing his walk, he
+turned to admire her graceful figure and the pretty carriage of her
+head. “I fancied that in these small towns every one knew every one.
+What sort of people are the Hammonds, I wonder? New, rich, and vulgar
+perhaps. It may be, and that would account for it. Yet Clode spoke
+highly of them.”
+
+Something which he did not understand in the girl’s manner continued to
+pique the young man’s curiosity after he had parted from her, and led
+him to dwell more intently upon her than upon the scenery, novel as
+this was to him. She had shown herself at one moment so frank, and at
+another so stiff and constrained, that it was equally impossible to
+ascribe the one attitude to shyness or the other to a naturally candid
+manner. The rector considered the question so long, and found it so
+puzzling—and interesting—that on his return to town he had come to one
+conclusion only—that it was his immediate duty to call upon his church
+wardens. He had made the acquaintance of Mr. Harper, his own warden, at
+his induction. It remained therefore to call upon Mr. Bonamy, the
+peoples’ warden. When he had taken his lunch, it seemed to him that
+there was no time like the present.
+
+He had no difficulty in finding Mr. Bonamy’s house, which stood in the
+middle of the town, about halfway down Bridge Street. It was a
+substantial, respectable residence of brick, not detached nor withdrawn
+from the roadway. It had nothing aristocratic in its appearance, and
+was known by a number. Its eleven windows, of which the three lowest
+rejoiced in mohair blinds, were sombre, its doorway was heavy. In a
+word, it was a respectable middle-class house in a dull street in a
+country town—a house suggestive of early dinners and set teas. The
+rector felt chilled by its very appearance; but he knocked, and
+presently a maid-servant opened the door about a foot. “Is Mr. Bonamy
+at home?” he said.
+
+“No, sir,” the girl drawled, holding the door as if she feared he might
+attempt to enter by force, “he is not.”
+
+“Ah, I am sorry I have missed him,” said the clergyman, handling his
+card-case. “Do you know at what time he is likely to return?”
+
+“No, sir, I don’t,” replied the girl, who was all eyes for the strange
+rector; “but I expect Miss Kate does. Will you walk up-stairs, sir? and
+I will tell her.”
+
+“Perhaps I had better,” he answered, pocketing his card-case.
+Accordingly he walked in, and followed the servant to the drawing-room,
+where she poked the sinking fire and induced a sickly blaze.
+
+Left to himself—for Kate was not there—he looked round curiously, and
+as he looked the sense of disappointment which he had felt at sight of
+the house grew upon him. It was a cold, uncomfortable room. It had a
+set, formal look, which was not quaintness, nor harmony, and which was
+strange to the Londoner. It was so neat: every article in it had a
+place, and was in its place, and apparently never had been out of its
+place. There was a vase of chrysanthemums on the large centre table,
+but the rector thought they must be wax, they were so prim. There were
+other wax flowers—which he hated. He almost shivered as he looked at
+the four walls. He felt obliged to sit upright on his chair, and to
+place his hat exactly in the middle of a square of the carpet, and to
+ponder over the question of what the maid had done with the poker. For
+she had certainly not stirred the fire with the bright and shining
+thing which lay in evidence in the fender.
+
+He was in the act of rising cautiously with the intention of solving
+this mystery, when the door opened and the elder sister came in,
+Daintry following her. “My father is not in, Mr. Lindo,” Kate said,
+advancing to meet him, and shaking hands with him.
+
+“No; so I learned down-stairs,” he answered. “But I——”
+
+The girl—she had scarcely turned from him—cut him short with an
+exclamation of dismay. “Oh, Daintry, you naughty girl!” she cried. “You
+have brought Snorum up.”
+
+“Well,” said Daintry simply—a large white dog, half bull-dog, half
+terrier, with red-rimmed eyes and projecting teeth, had crept in at her
+heels—“he followed me.”
+
+“You know papa would be so angry if he found him here.”
+
+“But I only want him to see Mr. Lindo. You are unkind, Kate! You know
+he never gets a chance of seeing a stranger.”
+
+“You want to know if he likes me?” the rector said, laughing.
+
+“That is it,” she answered, nodding.
+
+But Kate, though she laughed, was inexorable. She bundled the big dog
+out. “Do you know, she has two more like that, Mr. Lindo?” she said,
+apologetically.
+
+“Snip and Snap,” said Daintry. “But they are not like that. They are
+smaller. Jack gave me Snorum, and Snip and Snap are Snorum’s sons.”
+
+“It is quite a genealogy,” the rector said, smiling.
+
+“Yes, and Jack was the Genesis. Genesis means beginning, you know,”
+Daintry explained.
+
+“Daintry, you must go down-stairs if you talk nonsense,” Kate said
+imperatively. She was looking, the young man thought, prettier than
+ever in a gray and blue plaid frock and the neatest of collars and
+cuffs. As for Daintry, she shrugged her shoulders under the rebuke, and
+lolled in one of the stiff-backed chairs, her attitude much like that
+of a vine clinging to a telegraph-post.
+
+Her wilfulness had one happy effect, however. The rector in his
+amusement forgot the chill formality of the room and the dull
+respectability of the house’s exterior. For half an hour he talked on
+without a thought of the gentleman whom he had come to see. Some
+inkling of the circumstances of the case which had entered his head
+before the sisters’ appearance faded again, and in gazing on the pure
+animated faces of the two girls he quickly lost sight of the evidences
+of lack of taste which appeared in their surroundings. If Kate, on her
+side, forgot for a moment certain chilling realities and surrendered
+herself to the pleasure of the moment, it must be remembered that
+hitherto—in Claversham, at least—her experience of men had been
+confined to Dr. Gregg and his fellows, and also that none of us, even
+the wisest and proudest, are always on guard.
+
+Mr. Bonamy not appearing, Reginald left at last, perfectly assured that
+the half-hour he had just spent was the pleasantest he had spent in
+Claversham. He went out of the house in a gentle glow of enthusiasm.
+The picture of Kate Bonamy, trim and neat, with her hair in a bright
+knot, and laughter softening her eyes, remained with him, and he walked
+half-way down the street lost in a delightful reverie.
+
+He was aroused by the approach of a tall, elderly man who had just
+turned the corner before him, and was now advancing along the pavement
+with long, rapid strides. The stranger, who seemed about sixty, wore a
+wide-skirted black coat, and had a tall silk hat, from under which the
+gray hairs straggled thinly, set far back on his head. His figure was
+spare, his face sallow, his features prominent. His mouth was peevish,
+his eyes sharp and saturnine. As he walked he kept one hand in his
+trousers’-pocket, the other swung by his side. The rector looked at him
+a moment in doubt, and then stopped him. “Mr. Bonamy, I am sure?” he
+said, holding out his hand.
+
+“Yes, I am,” replied the other, fixing him with a penetrating glance.
+“And you, sir?”
+
+“May I introduce myself? I have just called at your house, and,
+unluckily, failed to find you at home. I am Mr. Lindo.”
+
+“Oh, the new rector!” said Mr. Bonamy, putting out a cold hand, while
+the chill glitter of his eye lost none of its steeliness.
+
+“Yes, and I am glad to have intercepted you,” Lindo continued, with a
+little color in his cheek, and speaking quickly under the influence of
+his late enthusiasm, which as yet was proof against the lawyer’s
+reserve. “For I have been extremely anxious to make your acquaintance,
+and, indeed, to say something particular to you, Mr. Bonamy.”
+
+The elder man bowed to hide a smile. “As church warden, I presume?” he
+said smoothly.
+
+“Yes, and—and generally. I am quite aware, Mr. Bonamy,” continued the
+rash young man in a fervor of frankness, “that you were not disposed to
+look upon my appointment—the appointment of a complete stranger, I
+mean—with favor.”
+
+“May I ask who told you that?” said Bonamy abruptly.
+
+The young clergyman colored. “Well, I—perhaps you will excuse me saying
+how I learned it,” he answered, beginning to see that he would have
+done better to be more reticent. There is no mistake which youth more
+often makes than that of arousing sleeping dogs, and trying to explain
+things which a wiser man would pass over in silence. Mr. Bonamy had his
+own reasons for regarding the parson with suspicion, and had no mind to
+be addressed in the indulgent vein. Nor was he propitiated when Lindo
+added, “I learned your feeling, if I may say so, by an accident.”
+
+“Then I think you should have kept knowledge so gained to yourself!”
+the lawyer retorted.
+
+The rector started and turned crimson under the reproof. His dignity
+was new and tender, and the other’s tone was offensive in the last
+degree. Yet the young man tried to control himself, and for the moment
+succeeded. “Possibly,” he said, with some stiffness. “My only motive in
+mentioning the latter, however, was this, that I hope in a short time,
+by appealing to you for your hearty co-operation, to overcome any
+prejudices you may have entertained.”
+
+“My prejudices are rather strong,” the lawyer answered grimly. “You are
+quite at liberty to try, however, Mr. Lindo. But I may as well warn you
+of one thing now, as frankness seems to be in fashion. I have just been
+told that you are meditating considerable changes in our church here.
+Now, I must tell you this, that I object to anything new—anything new,
+and not only to new incumbents!” with a smile which somewhat softened
+his last words.
+
+“But who informed you,” cried the rector in angry surprise, “that I
+meditated changes, Mr. Bonamy?”
+
+“Ah!” the lawyer answered in his dryest and thinnest voice. “That is
+just what I cannot tell you. Let us say that I learned it—by accident,
+Mr. Lindo!” And his sharp eyes twinkled.
+
+“It is not true, however!” the rector exclaimed.
+
+“Is it not? Well,” with a slight cough, “I am glad to hear it!”
+
+Mr. Bonamy’s tone as he made this admission, however, was such that it
+only irritated Lindo the more. “You mean that you do not believe me!”
+he cried, speaking so fiercely that Clowes the bookseller, who had been
+watching the interview from his shop-door, was able to repeat the words
+to a dozen people afterward. “I can assure you that it is so. I am not
+thinking of making any changes whatever—unless you consider the mere
+removal of the sheep from the churchyard a change!”
+
+“I do. A great change,” replied the church warden with grimness.
+
+“But surely you do not object to it!” Lindo exclaimed in astonishment.
+“Every one must agree that in these days, and in town churchyards at
+any rate, the presence of sheep is unseemly.”
+
+“I do not agree to that at all!” Mr. Bonamy answered calmly. “Neither
+did Mr. Williams, the late rector, who had had long experience, act as
+if he were of that mind.”
+
+The present rector threw up his hands in disgust—in disgust and wonder.
+Remember, he was very young. The thing seemed to him so clear that he
+was assured the other was arguing for the sake of argument—a thing we
+all hate in other people—and he lost patience. “I do not think you mean
+what you say, Mr. Bonamy,” he blurted out at last. He was much
+discomposed, yet he made an attempt to assume an air of severity which
+did not sit well upon him at the moment.
+
+Mr. Bonamy grinned. “That you will see when you turn out the sheep, Mr.
+Lindo,” he said. “For the present I think I will bid you good evening.”
+and taking off his hat gravely—to the rector the gravity seemed
+ironical—he went his way.
+
+Men take these things differently. To the lawyer there was nothing
+disturbing in such a passage of arms as this. He was never so
+happy—Claversham knew it well—as in and after a quarrel. “Master Lindo
+thought to twist me round his finger, did he?” he muttered to himself
+as he stopped on his own doorstep and thrust the key into the lock. “He
+has found out his mistake now. We will have nothing new here—nothing
+new while John Bonamy is warden, at any rate, my lad! It is well,
+however,” continued Mr. Bonamy with a backward glance, “that Clode gave
+me a hint in time. Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride—we know
+whither!” And the lawyer went in and slammed the door behind him.
+
+Meanwhile, what is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the
+gander. The younger man turned away, at the moment, indeed, in a white
+heat, full of wrath at the other’s unreasonableness, folly,
+churlishness. But the comfortable warmth which this engendered passed
+away quickly—alas! much too quickly—and long before Lindo reached the
+rectory, though the walk through the gray streets, where the shops were
+just being lighted, did not take him two minutes, a chill depression
+had taken its place. This was a fine beginning! This was a happy augury
+of his future administration of the parish! To have begun by
+quarrelling with his church warden—could anything have been worse? And
+the check had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and at a time when he
+had been on such good terms with himself, that he felt it the more
+sorely. He went into the house with his head bent, and was not best
+pleased to find Stephen Clode inquiring after him in the hall. He would
+rather have been alone.
+
+The curate, as he came forward, did not fail to note that something was
+amiss, and a gleam of intelligence flashed for an instant across his
+dark face. “Come into the study,” said the rector curtly. Since Clode
+was here, and could not be avoided, he felt it would be a relief to
+tell him all. And he did so, the curate listening and making no remark
+whatever, so that the rector presently looked at him in surprise. “What
+do you think of it?” he said, some impatience in his one. “It is
+unfortunate, is it not?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know,” the curate answered, leaning forward in his
+chair, with his elbows on his knees and his eyes cast down upon the hat
+which he was slowly revolving between his hands. “I am not astonished,
+you know. What can you expect from a pig but a grunt?”
+
+The rector got up, and, leaning his arm on the mantel-shelf, felt, if
+the truth be told, rather uncomfortable. “I do not understand you,” he
+said at length.
+
+“It is what I should have expected from Bonamy. That is all.”
+
+“Then you must think him a very ill-conditioned man!” Lindo retorted
+warmly, scarcely knowing whether the annoyance he felt was a
+reminiscence of his late conflict or caused by his companion’s manner.
+
+“Well, again, what else can you expect?” Clode replied sagely, looking
+up and shrugging his shoulders. “You know all about him, I suppose?”
+
+“I know nothing,” said the rector, frowning slightly.
+
+“He is not a gentleman, you know,” the curate answered, still looking
+up and speaking with languid indolence as if what he said must be known
+to everyone. “You have heard his history?”
+
+“No, I have not.”
+
+“He was an office-boy with Adams & Rooke, the old solicitors here,
+swept out the office, and brought the coal, and so forth. He had his
+wits about him, and old Adams gave him his articles, and finally took
+him into partnership. Then the old men died off and it all came to him.
+He is well off, and has power of a sort in the town; but, of course,”
+the curate added, getting up lazily and yawning—“well, people like the
+Hammonds do not visit with him.”
+
+There was silence in the room for a full minute. The rector had left
+the fireplace and, with his back to the speaker, was raising the
+lamp-wick. “Why did you not tell me this before?” he said at length,
+his voice hard.
+
+“I did not see why I should prejudice you against the man before you
+saw him,” replied the curate, with much reason. “Besides, I really was
+not sure whether you knew his history or not. I am afraid I did not
+give much thought to the matter.”
+
+“Umph!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+THE HAMMONDS’ DINNER PARTY.
+
+
+The new top, the new book, the bride—the first joy in the possession of
+each one of these fades, not gradually, but at a leap, as day fades in
+the tropics. A chip in the wood, the turning of the last page, the
+first selfish word, and the thing is done; ecstasy becomes sober
+satisfaction. It was so with the rector. The first glamour of his good
+fortune, of his new toy, died abruptly with that evening—with the
+quarrel with his church warden, and the discovery of the cause of that
+constraint which he had remarked in Kate Bonamy’s manner from the
+first.
+
+He was a conscientious man, and the failure of his good resolutions,
+his aspirations to be the perfect parish priest, fretted him. Moreover,
+he had to think of the future. He soon learned that Mr. Bonamy might
+not be a gentleman, and was indeed reputed to be a stubborn,
+queer-tempered curmudgeon; but he learned also that he had great
+influence in the town, though, except in the way of business, he
+associated with few, and that he, Reginald Lindo, would have to reckon
+with him on that footing. The certainty of this and of the bad
+beginning he had made naturally depressed the young man, his customary
+good opinion of himself not coming to his aid at once. And, besides, he
+carried about with him—sometimes it came between him and his book,
+sometimes he saw it framed by the autumn landscape—the picture of
+Kate’s pure proud face. At such moments he felt himself humiliated by
+the slights cast upon her. The Hammonds did not think her fit company
+for them! The Hammonds!
+
+Not that he knew the Hammonds yet, or many others, the days which
+intervened between his induction and the dinner at the Town House being
+somewhat lonely days, during which he was much thrown back upon
+himself, and only felt by slow degrees the soothing influence of the
+routine work of his position. Of his curate, and of him only, he
+naturally saw much, and found it small comfort to learn from the
+Reverend Stephen that the fracas with Mr. Bonamy had not escaped the
+attention of the town, but was being made the subject of comment by
+many who were delighted to have so novel a subject as the new rector
+and his probable conduct.
+
+He was sitting at breakfast a few days later—on the morning of the
+Hammonds’ party—when Mrs. Baker announced an early visitor. “No, he is
+not a gentleman, sir,” she said, “though he has on a black coat. A
+stranger to the town, I think, but he will not say what he wants,
+except to see you.”
+
+“I will come to him in the study,” replied her master.
+
+The housekeeper, however, going out, and taking a second glance at the
+caller, did not show him into the study, but instead, gave him a seat
+in the hall on the farther side from the coatstand. There the rector,
+when he came out, found him—a pale fat-faced man, dressed neatly and
+decorously, though his clothes were threadbare. He took him into the
+study, and asked him his business. “But first sit down,” the rector
+added pleasantly, desiring to set the man at his ease.
+
+The stranger sat down gingerly on the edge of a chair. For a moment
+there was a pause of seeming embarrassment, and then, “I am
+body-servant, sir,” he said abruptly, passing his tongue across his
+lips, and looking up furtively to learn the effect of his announcement,
+“to the Earl of Dynmore.”
+
+“Indeed!” the rector replied, with a slight start. “Has Lord Dynmore
+returned to England, then?”
+
+Again the man looked up slyly. “No, sir,” he answered with
+deliberation, “I cannot say that he has, sir.”
+
+“You have brought some letter or message from him, perhaps?” the
+clergyman hazarded. The stranger seemed to have a difficulty in telling
+his own story.
+
+“No, sir, if you will pardon me, I have come about myself, sir,” the
+man explained, speaking a little more freely. “I am in a little bit of
+trouble, and I think you would help me, sir, if you heard the story.”
+
+“I am quite willing to hear the story,” said the rector gravely.
+Looking more closely at the man, he saw that his neatness was only on
+the surface. His white cravat was creased, and his wrists displayed no
+linen. An air of seediness marked him in the full light of the windows,
+and, pale as his face was, it wore here and there a delicate flush.
+Perhaps the man’s admission that he was in trouble helped the rector to
+see this.
+
+“Well, sir, it was this way,” the servant began. “I was not very well
+out there, sir, and his lordship—he is an independent kind of
+man—thought he would be better by himself. So he gave me my
+passage-money and board wages for three months, and told me to come
+home and take a holiday until he returned to England. So far it was all
+right, sir.”
+
+“Yes?” said the rector.
+
+“But on board the boat—I am not excusing what I did, sir; but there are
+others have done worse,” continued the man, with another of his sudden
+upward glances—“I was led to play cards with a set of sharpers, and—and
+the end of it was that I landed at Liverpool yesterday without a
+halfpenny.”
+
+“That was bad.”
+
+“Yes, it was, sir. I do not know that I ever felt so bad in my life,”
+replied the servant earnestly. “And now you know my position, sir.
+There are several people in the town—but they have no means to help
+me—who can tell you I am his lordship’s valet, and my name Charles
+Felton.”
+
+“You want help, I suppose?”
+
+“I have not a halfpenny, sir! I want something to live on until his
+lordship comes back.”
+
+His tone changed as he said this, growing hard and almost defiant. The
+rector noted the alteration, and did not like it. “But why come to me?”
+he said, more coldly than he had yet spoken. “Why do you not go to Lord
+Dynmore’s steward, or agent, or his solicitor, my man?”
+
+“They would tell of me,” was the curt answer. “And likely enough I
+should lose my place.”
+
+“Still, why come to me?” Lindo persisted—chiefly to learn what was in
+the man’s mind, for he had already determined what he would do.
+
+“Because you are rector of Claversham, sir,” the applicant retorted at
+last. And he rose suddenly and confronted the parson with an unpleasant
+smile on his pale face—“which is in my lord’s gift, as you know, sir,”
+he continued, in a tone rude and almost savage—a tone which
+considerably puzzled his companion, who was not conscious of having
+said anything offensive to the man. “I came here, sir, expecting to
+meet an older gentleman, a gentleman of your name, a gentleman known to
+me, and I find you—and I see you, do you see, where I expected to find
+him.”
+
+“You mean my uncle, I suppose?” said Lindo.
+
+“Well, sir, you know best,” was the odd reply, and the man’s look was
+as odd as his words. “But that is how the case stands; and, seeing it
+stands so, I hope you will help me, sir. I do hope, on every account,
+sir, that you will see your way to help me.”
+
+The rector looked at the speaker with a slight frown, liking neither
+the man nor his behavior. But he had already made up his mind to help
+him, if only in gratitude to his patron, whose retainer he was; and
+this, though the earl would never know of the act, nor possibly approve
+of it. The man had at least had the frankness to own the folly which
+had brought him to these straits, and Lindo was inclined to set down
+the oddity of his present manner to the fear and anxiety of a
+respectable servant on the verge of disgrace. “Yes,” he said coldly,
+after a moment’s thought, “I am willing to help you. Of course I shall
+expect you to repay me if and when you are able, Felton.”
+
+“I will do that,” replied the man rather cavalierly.
+
+“You might have added, ‘and thank you, sir,’” the rector said, with a
+keen glance of reproof. He turned, as he spoke, to a small cupboard
+constructed between the bookshelves near the fireplace, and, opening
+it, took out a cash-box.
+
+The man colored under his reproach, and muttered some apology,
+resuming, as by habit, the tone of respect which seemed natural to him.
+All the same he watched the clergyman’s movements with great closeness,
+and appraised, even before it was placed in his hand, the sum which
+Lindo took from a compartment set apart apparently for gold. “I will
+allow you ten shillings a week—on loan, of course,” Lindo said after a
+moment’s thought. “You can keep yourself on that, I suppose? And,
+besides, I will advance you a sovereign to supply yourself with
+anything of which you have pressing need. That should be ample. There
+are three half sovereigns.”
+
+This time the man did thank him with an appearance of heartiness. But
+before he had said much the study door opened, and Stephen Clode came
+in, his hat in his hand. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” the curate said,
+taking in at a glance the open cash-box and the stranger’s outstretched
+hand, and preparing to withdraw. “I thought you were alone.”
+
+“Come in, come in!” said the rector, closing the money-box hastily, and
+with some embarrassment, for he was not altogether sure that he had not
+done a foolish and quixotic thing. “Our friend here is going. You can
+send me your address, Felton. Good-day.”
+
+The man thanked him and, taking up his hat, went. “Some one out of
+luck?” said Clode.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I did not much like his looks,” the curate remarked. “He is not a
+townsman, or I should know him.” The rector felt that his discretion
+was assailed, and hastened to defend himself. “He is respectable
+enough,” he said carelessly. “As a fact, he is Lord Dynmore’s valet.”
+
+“But has Lord Dynmore come back?” the curate exclaimed, his hand
+arrested in the act of taking down a book from a high shelf, and his
+head turning quickly. If he expected to learn anything, however, from
+his superior’s demeanor he was disappointed. Lindo was busy locking the
+cupboard, and had his back to him.
+
+“No, he has not come back,” Reginald explained, “but he has sent the
+man home, and the foolish fellow lost his money on the boat coming
+over, and wants an advance until his master’s return.”
+
+“But why on earth does he come to you for it?” cried the curate, with
+undisguised, astonishment.
+
+The rector shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, I do not know,” he said, a
+trifle of irritation in his manners. “He did, and there is an end of
+it. Is there any news?”
+
+Mr. Clode seemed to find a difficulty in at once changing the direction
+of his thoughts. But he did so with an effort, and, after a pause,
+answered, “No, I think not. There is a good deal of interest felt in
+the question of the sheep out there, I fancy—whether you will take your
+course or comply with Mr. Bonamy’s whim.”
+
+“I do not know myself,” said the young rector, turning and facing the
+curate, with his feet apart and his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
+“I do not, indeed. It is a serious matter.”
+
+“It is. Still you have the responsibility,” said the curate with
+diffidence, “and, without expressing any view of my own on the subject,
+I confess——”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I think if I bore the responsibility, I should feel called upon to do
+what I myself thought right in the matter.”
+
+The younger man shook his head doubtfully. “There is something in
+that,” he said; “but, on the other hand, one cannot look on the point
+as an essential, and, that being so, perhaps one should prefer peace.
+But, there, enough of that now, Clode. I think you said you were not
+going to the Hammonds’ this evening?”
+
+“No, I am not.”
+
+The rector almost wished he were not. However sociable a man may be, a
+few days of solitude and a little temporary depression will render him
+averse from society if he be sensitive. Lindo as a man was not very
+sensitive; he held too good an opinion of himself. But as rector he
+was, and as he walked across to the Town House he anticipated anything
+but enjoyment.
+
+In a few minutes, however—has it not some time or other happened to all
+of us?—everything was changed with him. He felt as if he had entered
+another world. The air of culture and refinement which surrounded him
+from the hall inward, the hearty kindness of Mrs. Hammond, the pretty
+rooms, the music and flowers, Laura’s light laughter and pleasant
+badinage, all surprised and delighted him. The party might almost have
+been a London party, it was so lively. The archdeacon, a red-faced,
+cherry, white-haired man, whose acquaintance Lindo had already made,
+and his wife, who was a mild image of himself, were of the number,
+which was completed by their daughter and four or five county people,
+all prepared to welcome and be pleased with the new rector. Lindo,
+sprung from gentlefolk himself, had the ordinary experience of society;
+but here he found himself treated as a stranger and a dignitary to a
+degree of notice and a delicate flattery of which he had not before
+tasted the sweets. Perhaps he was the more struck by the taste
+displayed in the house, and the wit and liveliness of his new friends,
+because he had so little looked for them—because he had insensibly
+judged his parish by his experience of Mr. Bonamy, and had come
+expecting this house to be as his.
+
+If, under these circumstances, the young fellow had been unaffected by
+the incense offered to him he would have been more than mortal. But he
+was not. He began, before he had been in the house an hour, to change,
+all unconsciously of course, his standpoint. He began to wonder
+especially why he had been so depressed during the last few days, and
+why he had troubled himself so much about the opinions of people whose
+views no sensible man would regard.
+
+Perhaps the girl beside him—he took in Laura—contributed as much as
+anything to this. It was not only that she was bright and sparkling, in
+the luxury of her pearls and evening dress even enchanting, nor only
+that the femininity which had enslaved Stephen Clode began to have its
+effects on her new neighbor. But Laura had a way while she talked to
+him, while her lustrous brown eyes dwelt momentarily on his, of
+removing herself and himself to a world apart—a world in which
+downrightness seemed more downright and rudeness an outrage. And so,
+while her manner gently soothed and flattered her companion, it led him
+almost insensibly to—well, to put it in the concrete—to think scorn of
+Mr. Bonamy.
+
+“You have had a misunderstanding,” she said softly, as they stood
+together by the piano after dinner, a feathering plant or two fencing
+them off in a tiny solitude of their own, “with Mr. Bonamy, have you
+not, Mr. Lindo?”
+
+From anyone else, perhaps from her half an hour before, he would have
+resented mention of the matter. Now he did not seem to mind. “Something
+of the kind,” he said, laughing.
+
+“About the sheep in the churchyard, was it not?” she continued.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, will you pardon me saying something?” Resting both her hands on
+the raised lid of the piano, she looked up at him, and it must be
+confessed that he thought he had never seen eyes so soft and brilliant
+before. “It is only this,” she said earnestly. “That I hope you will
+not give way to him. He is a wretched, cross-grained, fidgety man and
+full of crotchets. You know all about him, of course?” she added, a
+slight ring of pride in her voice.
+
+“I know that he is my church warden,” said the rector, half in
+seriousness.
+
+“Yes!” she replied. “That is just what he is fit for!”
+
+“You think so?” Lindo retorted, smiling. “Then you really mean that I
+should be guided by him? That is it?”
+
+She looked brightly at him for a moment. “I think you will be guided
+only by yourself,” she murmured; and, blushing slightly, she nodded and
+left him to go to another guest.
+
+They were all in the same tale. “He is a rude overbearing man, Mr.
+Lindo,” Mrs. Hammond said roundly, even her good nature giving place to
+the _odium theologicum_. “And I cannot imagine why Mr. Williams put up
+with him so long.”
+
+“No indeed,” said the archdeacon’s wife, complacently smoothing down
+her skirt. “But that is the worst of a town parish. You have this sort
+of people.”
+
+Mrs. Hammond looked for the moment as if she would have liked to deny
+it. But under the circumstances this was impossible. “I am afraid we
+have,” she admitted gloomily. “I hope Mr. Lindo will know how to deal
+with him.”
+
+“I think the archdeacon would,” said the other lady, shaking her head
+sagely.
+
+But, naturally enough, the archdeacon was more guarded in his
+expressions. “It is about removing the sheep from the churchyard, is it
+not?” he said, when he and Lindo happened to be left standing together
+and the subject came up. “They have been there a long time, you know.”
+
+“That is true, I suppose,” the rector answered. “But,” he continued
+rather warmly—“you do not approve of their presence there, archdeacon?”
+
+“No, certainly not.”
+
+“Nor do I. And, thinking the removal right, and the responsibility
+resting upon me, ought I not to undertake it?”
+
+“Possibly,” replied the older man. “But pardon me making a suggestion.
+Is not the thing of so little importance that you may, with a good
+conscience, prefer quiet to the trouble of raising it?”
+
+“If the matter were to end there, I think so,” replied the new rector,
+with perhaps too strong an assumption of wisdom in his tone. “But what
+if this be only a test case?—if to give way here means to encourage
+further trespass on my right of judgment? The affair would bear a
+different aspect then, would it not?”
+
+“Oh, no doubt. No doubt it would.”
+
+And that was all the archdeacon, who was a cautious man and knew Mr.
+Bonamy, would say. But it will be observed that the rector had both
+altered his standpoint and done another thing which most people find
+easy enough. He had discovered an answer to his own arguments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+TWO SURPRISES.
+
+
+On the evening of the Hammonds’ party, Mr. Clode sat alone in his room,
+trying to compose himself to work. His lamp burned brightly, and his
+tea kettle—he had already sent down his frugal dinner an hour or
+more—murmured pleasantly on the hob. But for some reason Mr. Clode
+could do no work. He was restless, gloomy, ill-satisfied. The
+suspicions which had been aroused in his breast on the evening of the
+rector’s arrival had received, up to to-day at least, no confirmation;
+but they had grown, as suspicions will, feeding on themselves, and with
+them had grown the jealousy which had fostered them into being. The
+curate saw himself already overshadowed by his superior, socially and
+in the parish; and this evening felt this the more keenly that, as he
+sat in his little room, he could picture perfectly the gay scene at the
+Town House, where, for nearly two years, not a party had taken place
+without his presence, no festivity had been arranged without his
+co-operation. The omission to invite him to-night, however natural it
+might seem to others, had for him a tremendous significance; so that
+from a jealousy that was general he leapt at once to a jealousy more
+particular, and conjured up a picture of Laura—with whose disposition
+he was not unacquainted—smiling on the stranger, and weaving about him
+the same charming net which had caught his own feet.
+
+At this thought Clode sprang up with a passionate gesture and began to
+walk to and fro, his brow dark. He felt sure that Lindo had no right to
+his cure, but he knew also that the cure was a freehold, and that to
+oust the rector from it something more than a mere mistake would have
+to be shown. If the rector should turn out to be very incompetent, if
+he should fall on evil times in the parish, then indeed he might find
+his seat untenable when the mistake should be discovered; and with an
+eye to this the curate had already dropped a word here and there—as,
+for instance, that word which had reached Mr. Bonamy. But Clode was not
+satisfied with that now. Was there no shorter, no simpler course
+possible? There was one. The rector might be shown to have been aware
+of the error when he took advantage of it. In that case his appointment
+would be vitiated, and he might be compelled to forego it.
+
+Naturally enough, the curate had scarcely formulated this to himself
+before he became convinced—in his present state of envy and
+suspicion—of the rector’s guilt. But how was he to prove it? As he
+walked up and down the room, chafing and hot-eyed, he thought of a way
+in which proof might be secured. The letters which had passed between
+Lindo and Lord Dynmore’s agents in regard to the presentation, must
+surely contain some word, some expression sufficient to have apprised
+the young man of the truth—that the living was intended not for him but
+for his uncle. A look at those letters, if they were in existence,
+might give Stephen Clode, mere curate though he was, the whip-hand of
+his rector!
+
+He had another plan in his mind, of which more presently, and probably
+he would have pursued the idea which has just been mentioned no farther
+if his eye had not chanced to light at the moment on a small key
+hanging upon a nail by the fireplace. Clode looked at the key, and his
+face flushed. He stood thinking and apparently hesitating, the lamp
+throwing his features into strong relief, while a man might count
+twenty. Then he sat down with an angry exclamation and plunged into his
+work. But in less than a minute he lifted his head. His glance wandered
+again to the key; and, getting up suddenly, he took it down, put on his
+hat, and went out.
+
+His lodgings were over the stationer’s shop, but he could go in and out
+through a private passage. He saw, as he passed, however; that there
+was a light in the shop, and he opened the side door. “I am going to
+the rectory to consult a book, Mrs. Wafer,” he said, seeing his
+landlady dusting the counter. “You can leave my lamp alight. I shall
+want nothing more to-night, thank you.”
+
+She bade him good-night, and he closed the door again and rushed into
+the street. Crossing the top of the town, he had to pass the Market
+Hall, where he spoke to the one policeman on night duty; and here he
+saw that it was five minutes to ten, and hastened his steps, in the
+fear that the rector’s household might have retired. “He will not be
+home himself until eleven, at the earliest,” the curate muttered as he
+turned rapidly into the churchyard, which was very dark, the night
+being moonless. “I have a clear hour. It was well that I looked in late
+the other night.”
+
+But, whatever his design, it received a sudden check. The rectory was
+closed! The front of the house stood up dark and shapeless as the great
+church which towered in front of it. The servants had gone to bed, and,
+as they slept at the back, he would have found it difficult to arouse
+them, had it suited his plans to do so. As it was, he did not dream of
+such a thing, and with a slight shiver—for the night was cold, and now
+that his project no longer excited him he felt it so, and felt too the
+influence of the night wind soughing in sad fashion through the yews—he
+was turning away, when something arrested his attention, and he paused.
+
+The something he had seen, or fancied he had seen, was a momentary
+glimmer of light shining through the fanlight over the door. It could
+not affect him, for, if the servants had really closed the house for
+the night, even if they had not all gone to bed, he could scarcely go
+in. And yet some impulse led him to step softly into the porch and
+grope for the knocker.
+
+His hand lit instead on the iron-studded surface of the old oak door,
+and, to his surprise, he felt it move slightly under his touch. He
+pushed, and the door slid slowly and silently open, disclosing the
+dusky outline of the hall, faintly illuminated by a thin shaft of light
+which proceeded apparently from the study, the door of which was a
+trifle ajar.
+
+The sight recalled to the curate’s mind the errand on which he had
+come, and he stole across the hall on tiptoe, listening with all his
+ears. He heard nothing, however, and presently he stood on the mat at
+the study door intercepting the light. Then he did hear the dull
+footsteps of some one moving in the room, and suddenly it occurred to
+him that the rector had stepped home to fetch something—a song, music,
+or a book possibly—and was now within searching for it. That would
+explain all.
+
+The curate was seized with panic at the thought, and, fearful of being
+discovered in his present position—for though he might have done all he
+had done in perfect innocence, conscience made a coward of him—he crept
+across the hall again and passed out into the churchyard. There he
+stood in the darkness, waiting and watching, expecting the rector to
+bustle out each minute.
+
+But five minutes passed, and even ten, as it seemed to the curate in
+his impatience, and no one came out, nor did the situation alter. Then
+he made up his mind that the person moving in the study could not be
+the owner of the house, and he went in again and, crossing the hall,
+flung the study door wide open and entered.
+
+There was a ringing sound as of coins falling on the floor, and a man
+who had been kneeling low over something sprang to his feet and gazed
+with wide, horror-stricken eyes at the intruder. A moment only the man
+looked, and then he fell again on his knees. “Oh, mercy! mercy!” he
+cried, almost grovelling before the curate. “Don’t give me up! I have
+never been took! I have never been in jail or in trouble in my life! I
+did not know what I was doing, sir! I swear I did not! Don’t give me
+up!”
+
+This cry, which was low and yet piercing, ended in hysterical sobbing.
+On the table by his side stood a single candle, and by its light Clode
+saw that the little cupboard among the books was open. The curate
+started at the sight, and the words which he had been about to utter to
+the shrinking wretch begging for mercy on the floor before him died
+away in his husky throat. His eyes, however, burned with a gloomy rage,
+and when he recovered himself his voice was pitiless. “You scoundrel!”
+he said, in the low rich tone which had been so much admired in the
+church when he first came to Claversham, “what are you doing here? Get
+up and speak!” And he made as if he would spurn the creature with his
+foot.
+
+“I am a respectable man,” the rogue whined. “I am—that is I was, I
+mean, sir—don’t be hard on me—Lord Dynmore’s own valet. I will tell you
+all, sir.”
+
+“I know you!” rejoined Clode, looking harshly at him. “You were here
+this morning. And Mr. Lindo gave you money.”
+
+“He did, sir. I confess it. I am a——”
+
+“You are an ungrateful scoundrel!” Stephen Clode answered, cutting the
+man short. “That is what you are! And in a few days you will be a
+convicted felon, with the broad-arrow on your clothes, my man!”
+
+To hear his worst anticipations thus put into words was too much for
+the poor wretch. He fell on his knees, feebly crying for mercy, mercy!
+“You are a minister of the gospel. Give me this one more chance, sir!”
+he prayed.
+
+“Stop that noise!” growled the curate fiercely, his dark face rendered
+more rugged by the light and shadow cast by the single candle. “Be
+silent! do you hear? and get up and speak like a man, if you can. Tell
+me all—how you came here, and what you came for, and perhaps I may let
+you escape. But the truth, mind, the truth!” he added truculently.
+
+The knave was too thoroughly terrified to think of anything else. “Lord
+Dynmore dismissed me,” he muttered, his breath coming quickly. “He
+missed some money in Chicago, and he gave me enough to carry me home,
+and bade me go to the devil! I landed in Liverpool without a
+shilling—sir, it is God’s truth—and I remembered the gentleman Lord
+Dynmore had just put in the living here. I had known him, and he had
+given me half a sovereign more than once. And I thought I would come to
+him. So I pawned my clothes, and came on.”
+
+“Yes, yes!” exclaimed the curate, leaning forward, with fierce
+impatience in his tone. “And then?”
+
+“Sir?”
+
+“Well? When you came here? What happened? Go on, fool!” He could
+scarcely control himself.
+
+“I found a stranger,” whimpered the man—“another Mr. Lindo. He had got
+in here somehow.”
+
+“Well? But there,” added the curate with a sudden change of manner,
+“how do you know that Lord Dynmore meant to put the clergyman you used
+to know in here?”
+
+“Because I heard him read a letter from his agents about it,” the
+fellow replied at once. “And from what his lordship said I knew it was
+his old pal—his old friend, sir, I mean, begging your pardon humbly,
+sir.”
+
+“And when did you learn,” said the curate more quickly, “that the
+gentleman here was not your Mr. Lindo?”
+
+“I heard in the town that he was a young man. And, putting one thing
+and another together, and keeping a still tongue myself, I thought he
+would serve me as well as the other, and I called——”
+
+“What did you say?”
+
+“Not much, sir,” answered the valet, a twinkle of cunning in his eye.
+“The less said the sooner mended. But he understood, and he promised to
+give me ten shillings a week.”
+
+“To hold your tongue?”
+
+“Well, so I took it, sir.”
+
+The curate drew a long breath. This was what he had expected. It was to
+information which might be drawn from this man that his second scheme
+had referred. And here was the man at his service, bound by a craven
+fear to do his bidding—bound to tell all he knew. “But why,” Clode
+asked suspiciously, a thought striking him, “if what you say be true,
+are you here now—doing this, my man?”
+
+“I was tempted, sir,” the servant answered, his tone abject again. “I
+confess it truly, sir. I saw the money in the box here this morning,
+sir, and I thought that my ten shillings a week would not last long,
+and a little capital would set me up comfortably. And then the devil
+put it into my head that the young gentleman would not persecute me,
+even if he caught me.”
+
+“You did not think of me catching you?” said the curate grimly.
+
+The man uttered a cry of anguish. “That I did not, sir,” he sobbed.
+“Oh, Lord! I have never had a policeman’s hand on me. I have been
+honest always.”
+
+“Until you took his lordship’s money,” replied the curate quietly. “But
+I understand. You have never been found out before, you mean.”
+
+No doubt when people of a certain class, for which respectability has
+long spelled livelihood, do fall into the law’s clutch they suffer very
+sharply. Master Felton continued to pour forth heartrending prayers;
+but he might have saved his breath. The curate’s thoughts were
+elsewhere. He was thinking that a witness so valuable must be kept
+within reach at any cost and it did flash across his brain that the
+best course would be to hand him over now to the police, and trust to
+the effect which his statements respecting the rector should produce
+upon the inquiry. But the reflection that the allegations of a man on
+his trial for burglary would not obtain much credence led Clode to
+reject this simple course and adopt another. “Look here!” he said
+curtly. “I am going to deal mercifully with you, my man. But—but,” he
+continued, frowning impatiently, as he saw the other about to speak—“on
+certain conditions. You are not to leave Claversham. That is the first.
+If you leave the town before I give you the word, I shall put the
+police on your track without an instant’s delay. Do you hear that?”
+
+“I will stop as long as you like, sir,” said the servant submissively,
+but with wonder apparent both in his voice and face.
+
+“Very well. I wish it for the present, no matter why. Perhaps because I
+would see that you lead an honest life for awhile.”
+
+“And—how shall I live, sir?” said the culprit timidly.
+
+“For the present you may continue to draw your half-sovereign a week,”
+the curate answered hastily, his face reddening, he best knew why.
+“Possibly I may tell Mr. Lindo at once. Possibly I may give you another
+chance, and tell him later, if I find you deserving. What is your
+address?”
+
+“I am at the Bull and Staff,” muttered Felton. It was a small public
+house of no very good repute.
+
+“Well, stay there,” Stephen Clode answered after a moment’s thought.
+“But see you get into no harm. And since you are living on the rector’s
+bounty, you may say so.”
+
+The man looked puzzled as well as relieved, but, stealing a doubtful
+glance at the curate’s dark fate, he found his eyes still upon him, and
+cowered afresh. “Yes, take care,” said Clode, smiling unpleasantly as
+he saw the effect his look produced. “Do not try to evade me or it will
+be the worse for you, Felton. And now go! But see you take nothing from
+here.”
+
+The detected one cast a sly glance at the half-rifled box which still
+lay on the carpet at his feet, a few gold coins scattered round it;
+then he looked up again. “It is all there, sir,” he said, cringing. “I
+had but just begun.”
+
+“Then go!” said the curate, pointing with emphasis to the door. “Go, I
+tell you!”
+
+The man’s presence annoyed and humiliated him so that he felt a
+positive relief when the valet’s back was turned. Left alone he stood
+listening, a cloud on his brow, until the faint sound of the outer door
+being pulled to reached his ear, and then, stooping hastily, he
+gathered up the sovereigns and half-sovereigns, which lay where they
+had fallen, and put them into the box. This done, he rose and laid the
+box itself upon the table by his side. And again he stood still,
+listening, a dark shade on his face.
+
+Long ago, almost at the moment of his entrance, he had seen the pale
+shimmer of papers at the back of the little cupboard. Now, still
+listening stealthily, he thrust in his hand and drew out one of the
+bundles and opened it. The papers were parish accounts in his own
+handwriting! With a gesture of fierce impatience he thrust them back
+and drew out others, and, disappointed again in these, exchanged them
+hastily for a third set. In vain! The last were as worthless to him as
+the first.
+
+He was turning away baffled and defeated, when he saw lying at the back
+of the lower compartment of the cupboard, whence the cash-box had come,
+two or three smaller packets, consisting apparently of letters. The
+curate reached hastily for one of these, and the discovery that it
+contained some of Lindo’s private accounts, dated before his
+appointment, made his face flush and his fingers tremble with
+eagerness. He glanced nervously round the room and stopped to listen;
+then, moving the candle a little nearer, he ran his eye over the
+papers. But here, too, though the scent was hot, he took nothing, and
+he exchanged the packet for one of the others. Looking at this, he saw
+that it was indorsed in Lindo’s handwriting, “Letters relating to the
+Claversham Living.”
+
+“At last,” Clode muttered, his eyes burning, “I have it now.” The
+string which bound the packet was knotted tightly, and his fingers
+seemed all thumbs as he labored to unfasten it. But he succeeded at
+last, and opening the uppermost letter (they were all folded across),
+saw that it was written from Lincoln’s Inn Fields. “My dear sir,” he
+read; and then—with a mighty crash sounding awfully in his ears—the
+door behind him was flung open just as he had flung it open himself an
+hour before, and, dropping the letter, he sprang round, to find the
+rector confronting him with a face of stupid astonishment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+TOWN TALK.
+
+
+He was a man, as the reader will perhaps have gathered, of many shifts,
+and cool-headed; but for a moment he felt something of the anguish of
+discovery which had so tortured the surprised servant. The table shook
+beneath his hand, and it was with difficulty he repressed a wild
+impulse to overturn the candle, and escape in the darkness. He did
+repress it, however; nay, he forced his eyes to meet the rector’s, and
+twisted his lips into the likeness of a smile. But when he thought of
+the scene afterward he found his chief comfort in the reflection that
+the light had been too faint to betray his full embarrassment.
+
+Naturally the rector was the first to speak. “Clode!” he ejaculated
+softly, his surprise above words. “Is it you? Why, man,” he continued,
+still standing with his hand on the door and his eyes devouring the
+scene, “what is up?”
+
+The money-box stood open at the curate’s side, and the letters lay
+about his feet where they had fallen. The little cupboard yawned among
+the books. No wonder Lindo’s amazement, as he gradually took it all in,
+rather increased than diminished, or that the curate’s tongue was dry
+and his throat husky when he at last found his voice. “It is all right.
+I will explain it,” he stammered, almost upsetting the table in his
+agitation. “I expected you before,” he added fussily, moving the light.
+
+“The dickens you did!” slipped from the rector. It was difficult for
+him not to believe that his arrival had been the last thing expected.
+
+“Yes,” returned the curate, with a little snap of defiance. He was
+recovering himself, and could look the other in the face now. “But I am
+glad you did not come before, all the same.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I will explain.”
+
+The light which the one candle gave was not so meagre that Clode’s
+embarrassment had altogether escaped Lindo; and had the latter been a
+suspicious man he might have had queer thoughts, and possibly expressed
+them. As it was, he was only puzzled, and when the curate said he would
+explain, answered simply, “Do.”
+
+“The truth is,” said Stephen Clode, beginning with an effort, “I have
+taken a good deal on myself, and I am afraid you will blame me, Mr.
+Lindo. If so, I cannot help it.” His face flushed, and he beat a tattoo
+on the table with his fingers. “I came across,” he continued, “to
+borrow a book a little before ten. The lights here were out; but, to my
+surprise, your house-door was open.”
+
+“As I found it myself!” the rector exclaimed.
+
+“Precisely. Naturally I had misgivings, and I looked into the hall. I
+saw a streak of light proceeding from the doorway of this room, and I
+came in softly to see what it meant. I heard a man moving about in
+here, and I threw open the door much as you did.”
+
+“Did you?” said Lindo eagerly. “And who was it—the man, I mean?”
+
+“That is just what I cannot tell you,” replied the curate. His face was
+pale, but there was a smile upon it, and he met the other’s gaze
+without flinching. He had settled his plan now.
+
+“He got away, then?” said the rector, disappointed.
+
+“No. He did not try either to escape or to resist,” was the answer.
+
+“But was he really a burglar?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then where is he?” The rector looked round as if he expected to see
+the man lying bound on the floor. “What did you do with him?”
+
+“I let him go.”
+
+Lindo whistled; and when he had done whistling still stood with his
+mouth open and a face of the most complete mystification. “You let him
+go?” he repeated mechanically, but not until after a pause of half a
+minute or so. “Why, may I ask?”
+
+“You have every right to ask,” the curate answered with firmness, and
+yet despondently. “I will tell you why—why I let him go, and why I
+cannot tell you his name. He is a parishioner of yours. It was his
+first offence, and I believe him to be sincerely penitent. I believe,
+too, that he will never repeat the attempt, and that the accident of my
+entrance saved him from a life of crime. I may have been wrong—I dare
+say I was wrong,” continued the curate, growing excited—excitement came
+very easily to him at the moment—“but I cannot go back from my word.
+The man’s misery moved me. I thought what I should have felt in his
+place, and I promised him, in return for his pledge that he would live
+honestly in the future, that he should go free, and that I would not
+betray his name to any one—to any one!”
+
+“Well!” exclaimed the rector, his tone one of unbounded admiration in
+every sense of the word. “When you do a thing nobly, my dear fellow,
+you do do it nobly, and no mistake! I wonder who it was! But I must not
+ask you.”
+
+“No.” said Clode. “And now,” he continued, still beating the tattoo on
+the table, “you do not blame me greatly?”
+
+“I do not, indeed. No. Only I think perhaps that you should have
+retained the right to tell me.”
+
+“I should have done so,” said the curate regretfully.
+
+“He has taken nothing, I suppose?” the rector continued, turning to the
+cupboard, and, not only satisfied with the explanation, but liking
+Clode better than he had liked him before.
+
+“No,” the other answered. “I was putting things straight when you
+entered and startled me. He had dropped the money about the floor, but
+you will find it right, I think. He has made a mess among the papers, I
+fear, and damaged the cupboard door in forcing it, but that is the
+extent of the mischief. By the way,” the curate added, “I have a key to
+this cupboard at my lodgings. Williams gave it to me. He only kept
+parish matters here. I must let you have it.”
+
+“Right,” said the rector carelessly; and, a few more words having
+passed between them as to the attempted robbery, and the manner in
+which the outer door had been opened, the curate took his hat and
+prepared to go. “You had a pleasant party, I suppose?” he said, pausing
+and turning when halfway across the hall.
+
+“A _very_ pleasant one,” Lindo answered with enthusiasm.
+
+“They are nice people,” said Clode smoothly.
+
+“They are—very nice. You told me I should find them so, and you were
+right. Good-night.”
+
+“Good-night.”
+
+Such harmless words! And yet they roused the curate’s jealousy anew. As
+he walked home, the church clock tolling midnight above his head, he
+drank in no peaceful influence from the dark stillness or the solemn
+sound. He was gnawed by fresh hatred of the man who had surprised and
+confounded him, and forced him to lie and quibble in order to escape
+from a dishonorable position. If you would make a man your enemy come
+upon him when he is doing something of which he is ashamed. He will
+fear you afterward, but he will hate you more. In the curate’s case it
+was only he who knew himself discovered, so that he had no ground for
+fear. But he hated none the less vigorously.
+
+And, somehow, in a few days an ugly rumor of which the new rector was
+the subject began to gain currency in the town. It was an ill-defined
+rumor, coming to one thing in one person’s mouth and to a different
+thing in another’s—a kind of cloud on the rector’s fair fame, shifting
+from moment to moment, and taking ever a fresh shape, yet always a
+cloud.
+
+One whispered that he had obtained the presentation as the reward of
+questionable services rendered to the patron. Another that he had
+forged his own deed of presentation, if such a thing existed. A third
+that he had been presented by mistake; and a fourth that he had
+deceived the authorities as to his age. It was noticeable that these
+rumors began low down in the social scale of the town and worked their
+way upward, which was odd; and that, whatever form the rumor took,
+there was not one who heard it who did not within a fortnight or three
+weeks come to associate it with the presence of a seedy, down-looking,
+unwholesome man, who was much about the rector’s doorway, and, when he
+was not there, was generally to be found at the Bull and Staff. Whether
+he was the disseminator of the reports, or, alike with the rector, was
+the unconscious subject of them, was not known; but at sight of
+him—particularly if he were seen, as frequently happened, in the
+rector’s neighborhood—people shrugged their shoulders and lifted their
+eyebrows, and expressed a great many severe things without using their
+tongues.
+
+To the circle of the rector’s personal friends the rumors did not
+reach. That was natural enough. To tell a person that his or her
+intimate friend is a forger or a swindler is a piquant but somewhat
+perilous task. And no one mentioned the matter to the Hammonds, or to
+the archdeacon, or to the Homfrays of Holberton, or the other county
+people living round, with whom it must be confessed that, after that
+dinner-party at the Town House, he consorted perhaps too exclusively.
+It might have been thought that even the townsfolk, seeing the young
+fellow’s frank face passing daily about their streets, and catching the
+glint of his fair curly hair when, the wintry sunlight pierced the
+lanthorn windows and fell in gules and azure on the reading-desk, would
+have been slow to believe such tales of him.
+
+They might have been; but circumstances and Mr. Bonamy were against
+him. The lawyer did not circulate the stories; he had not even
+mentioned them out-of-doors, nor, for aught the greater part of
+Claversham knew, had heard of them at all. But all his weight—and with
+the Low-Church middle-class in the town it was great—was thrown into
+the scale against the rector. It was known that he did not trust the
+rector. It was known that day by day his frown on meeting the rector
+grew darker and darker. And the why and the wherefore not being
+understood—for no one thought of questioning the lawyer, or observed
+how frequently of late the curate happened upon him in the street or
+the reading-room—many concluded that he knew more of the clergyman’s
+antecedents than appeared.
+
+There was one person, and perhaps only one, who openly circulated and
+rejoiced in these rumors. That was a man whom Lindo met daily in the
+street and passed with a careless nod and a word, not dreaming for an
+instant that the spiteful little busybody was concerning himself with
+him. The man was Dr. Gregg, the snappish, ill-bred man who had chanced
+upon Lindo and the Bonamy girls breakfasting together at Oxford. The
+sight, it will be remembered, had not pleased him, for he had long had
+a sneaking liking for Miss Kate himself, and had only refrained from
+trying to win her because he still more desired to be of the “best set”
+in Claversham. He had been ashamed, indeed, up to this time of his
+passion; but, reading on that occasion unmistakable admiration of the
+girl in the young clergyman’s face, and being himself rather cavalierly
+treated by Lindo, he had somewhat changed his views. The girl had
+acquired increased value in his eyes. Another’s appreciation had
+increased his own, and, merely as an incident, the man who had effected
+this has earned his hearty jealousy and ill-will. And this, while Lindo
+thought him a vulgar but harmless little man.
+
+But if the rector, immersed in new social engagements, did not see
+whither he was tending, others, though they knew nothing of the
+unpleasant tales we have mentioned, saw more clearly. The archdeacon,
+coming into town one Saturday five or six weeks after Lindo’s arrival,
+did his business early and turned his steps toward the rectory. He felt
+pretty sure of finding the young fellow at home, because he knew it was
+his sermon day. A few yards from the door he fell in, as it chanced,
+with Stephen Clode. The two stood together talking, while the
+archdeacon waited to be admitted, and presently the curate said, “If
+you wish to see the rector, archdeacon, I am afraid you will be
+disappointed. He is not at home.”
+
+“But I thought that he was always at home on Saturdays?”
+
+“Generally he is,” Clode replied, looking down and tracing a pattern
+with the point of his umbrella. “But he is away to-day.”
+
+“Where?” said the archdeacon rather abruptly.
+
+“He has gone to the Homfrays’ at Holberton. They have some sort of
+party to-day, and the Hammonds drove him over.” Despite himself, the
+curate’s tone was sullen, his manner constrained.
+
+“Oh!” said the archdeacon thoughtfully. The Homfrays were his very good
+friends, but of the county families round Claversham they were reckoned
+the fastest and most frivolous. And he sagely suspected that a man in
+Lindo’s delicate position might be wiser if he chose other companions.
+“Lindo seems to see a good deal of the Hammonds,” he remarked after a
+pause.
+
+“Yes,” said Clode. “It is very natural.”
+
+“Oh, very natural,” the archdeacon hastened to say; but his tone
+clearly expressed the opinion that “toujours Hammonds” was not a good
+bill of fare for the rector of Claversham. “Very natural, of course.
+Only,” he continued, taking courage, for he really liked the rector,
+“you have had some experience here, and I think it would be well if you
+were to give him a hint not to be too exclusive. A town rector must not
+be too exclusive. It does not do.”
+
+“No,” said Clode.
+
+“It is different in the country, of course. And then there is Mr.
+Bonamy. He is unpleasant, I know, and yet he is honest after a fashion.
+Lindo must beware of getting across with him. He has done nothing about
+the sheep yet, has he?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, do not let him, if you can help it. You are not urging him on in
+that, are you?”
+
+“On the contrary,” the curate answered rather warmly, “I have all
+through told him that I would not express an opinion on it. If
+anything, I have discouraged him in the matter.”
+
+“Well, I hope he will let it drop now. I hope he will let it drop.”
+
+They parted then, and the archdeacon, sagely revolving in his mind the
+evils of exclusiveness, strolled back to the hotel where he put up his
+horses. On his way, casting his eye down the wide, quiet street, with
+its old-fashioned houses on this side and that, he espied Mr. Bonamy’s
+tall spare figure approaching, and he purposely passed the inn and went
+to meet him. As a county magnate the archdeacon could afford to know
+Mr. Bonamy, and even to be friendly with him. I am not sure, indeed,
+that he had not a sneaking liking and respect for the rugged, snappish,
+self-made man.
+
+“How do you do, Mr. Bonamy?” he began. And then, after saying a few
+words about closing a road in which he was interested, he slid into a
+mention of Lindo, with a view to seeing how the land lay. “I have just
+been to call on your rector,” he said.
+
+“You did not find him at home,” replied Bonamy, with a queer grin, and
+a little jerk of his head which sent his hat still farther back.
+
+“No, I was unlucky.”
+
+“Not more than most people,” said the churchwarden, with much
+enjoyment. “I will tell you what it is, Mr. Archdeacon. Mr. Lindo is
+better suited for your place. He would make a very good archdeacon.
+With a pair of horses and a park phaeton and a small parish, and a
+little general superintendence of the district—with that and the life
+of a country gentleman he would get on capitally.”
+
+There was just so much of a jest in the words that the clergyman had no
+choice but to laugh. “Come, Bonamy,” he said good-humoredly, “he is
+young yet.”
+
+“Oh, yes, he is quite out of place here in that respect, too!” replied
+the lawyer naïvely.
+
+“But he will improve,” pleaded the archdeacon.
+
+“I am not sure that he will have the chance,” Mr. Bonamy answered in
+his gentlest tone.
+
+The archdeacon was so far from understanding him that he did not answer
+save by raising his eyebrows. Could Bonamy really be so foolish, he
+wondered, as to think he could get rid of a beneficed clergyman. The
+archdeacon was surprised, and yet that was all he could make of it.
+
+“He is away at Mr. Homfray’s of Holberton now,” the lawyer continued,
+condemnation in his thin voice.
+
+“Well, there is no harm in that, Mr. Bonamy,” replied the archdeacon,
+somewhat offended, “as long as he is back to do the duty to-morrow.”
+
+Mr. Bonamy grunted. “A one-day-a-week duty is a very fine thing,” he
+said. “You clergymen are to be envied, Mr. Archdeacon!”
+
+“You would be a great deal more to be envied yourself, Mr. Bonamy,” the
+magnate returned with heat, “if you did not carp at everything and look
+at other people through distorted glasses. Fie! here is a young
+clergyman new to the parish, and, instead of helping him, you find
+fault with everything he does. For shame! For shame, Mr. Bonamy!”
+
+“Ah!” said the lawyer, quite unabashed, “you did not mean to say that
+when you came across the street to me. But—well, least said soonest
+mended, and I will wish you good evening. You will have a wet drive
+home, I am afraid, Mr. Archdeacon.”
+
+And he put up his umbrella and went his way sturdily, while the
+archdeacon, crossing to his carriage, which was in front of the inn,
+entertained an uncomfortable suspicion that he had done more harm than
+good by his intercession. “I am afraid,” he said to himself, as he
+handled the reins and sent his horses down the street in a fashion of
+which he was not a little proud—“I am afraid that there is trouble in
+front of that young man. I am afraid there is.”
+
+If he had known all, he might have shaken his head still more gravely,
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+OUT WITH THE SHEEP.
+
+
+Stephen Clode, while listening with a certain pleasure to the
+archdeacon’s hints, did not dream of the good turn which fortune was
+about to do him. If he had foreseen it, he would probably have taken a
+bolder part in the conversation, and parted from the elder clergyman
+with a more jubilant step. As it was, he heard no rumor that evening,
+nor was it until ten o’clock on the Sunday morning that he learned
+anything was amiss. Calling at the house in the churchyard at that
+hour, he was received by Mrs. Baker herself; and he remarked at once
+that the housekeeper’s face fell in a manner far from flattering when
+she recognized him.
+
+“Oh, it is you, is it, Mr. Clode?” she said, her tone one of
+disappointment. “You have not seen him, sir, have you?”
+
+“Seen whom?” the curate replied in surprise.
+
+“Mr. Lindo, sir?”
+
+“Why? Is he not here?”
+
+“He is not, indeed, sir,” the housekeeper said, putting her head out to
+look up and down. “He never came back last night, and we have not heard
+of him. I sent across to the Town House to inquire, and the only thing
+Mrs. Hammond could say was that Mr. Lindo was to follow them, and they
+supposed he had come.”
+
+“Well, but—who is to do the duty at the church?” Clode ejaculated. His
+dismay at the moment was genuine, for he did not at once see how much
+this was to his advantage.
+
+“There is only you, sir, unless he comes in time,” the housekeeper
+added despondently.
+
+“But I am going to the Hamlet church,” said Clode, rapidly turning
+things over in his mind. If there was no one at the parish church to
+conduct the chief service of the week, what a talk there would be! Why
+it would almost be matter for the bishop’s interference! “You see I
+cannot possibly neglect that,” he continued, in answer as much to the
+remonstrance of his own conscience as to the housekeeper. “It was the
+rector’s own arrangement, Mrs. Baker. You may be sure he will be here
+in time for the eleven o’clock service. Mr. Homfray has kept him over
+night. That is all.”
+
+“You do not think he has met with an accident, sir? They say the
+coal-pits on Baer Hill——”
+
+“Pooh, pooh! He will be here in a few minutes, you will see,” the
+curate answered. And he affected to be so cheerfully certain of this
+that he would not wait even for a little while, but started at once for
+the Hamlet church—a small chapel-of-ease in the outskirts of the town.
+There he put on his surplice early, and was ready in excellent time.
+Punctuality is a virtue.
+
+At half-past ten the bells of the great church began to ring, and
+presently door after door in the quiet streets about it opened
+silently, and little parties issued forth in their Sunday clothes and
+walked stiffly and slowly toward the building. At the moment when the
+High Street was dotted most thickly with these groups, and the small
+bell was tinkling its impatient summons, the rattle of an old
+taxed-cart was heard as the vehicle flashed quickly over the bridge at
+the foot of the street. One and another of the church-goers turned in
+curiosity to gaze, for such a sound was rare on a Sunday morning. Judge
+of their astonishment, then, when they recognized, perched up beside
+the boy who urged on the pony, no less a person than the rector
+himself! As he jogged up the street in his sorry conveyance and with
+his sorry companion, he had to pass under the fire of a battery of eyes
+which did not fail to notice all the peculiarities of his appearance.
+His tie was awry and his chin unshaven. He had a haggard, dissipated
+air, as of one who had been up all night, and there was a great smudge
+on his cheek. He looked dissipated—-nothing less than disreputable,
+some said; and he seemed aware of it, for he sat erect, gazing straight
+before him, and declining to see any one. At the top of the street he
+descended hastily, and, as the bell jerked out its final note, hurried
+toward the vestry with a depressed and gloomy face.
+
+“Well!” said Mr. Bonamy to Kate, who was walking up by his side, and
+whose face for some mysterious reason was flushed and troubled, “I
+think that is the coolest young man I have ever met!”
+
+“Eh?” said a voice behind them as they entered the porch—the speaker
+was Gregg. “What do you think of that, Bonamy? A gay young spark, is he
+not?”
+
+There was time for no more then. But as the congregation waited in
+their seats through a long voluntary, many were the nods and winks, and
+incessant the low mutterings, as one communicated to another the
+details of the scene outside, and his or her view of them. When the
+rector appeared—nine minutes late by Mr. Bonamy’s watch—he looked pale
+and fagged, and the sermon he preached was of the shortest. Nine-tenths
+of the congregation noted only the brevity of the discourse and drew
+their conclusions. But Kate Bonamy, who sat by her father with downcast
+eyes and a tinge of color still in her cheeks, and who scarcely once
+looked up at the weary face and tumbled hair, fancied, heaven knows
+why, that she detected a new pathos and a deeper tone of appeal in the
+few simple sentences; and though she had scarcely spoken to the rector
+for a month, and was nursing a tiny contempt for him, the girl felt on
+a sudden more kindly disposed toward the young man.
+
+Not so Mr. Bonamy, He came out of church chuckling; full of a grim
+delight in the fulfilment of his predictions. It was not his custom to
+linger in the porch, for he was not a sociable man; but he did so
+to-day, and, letting Kate and Daintry go on, formed one of a coterie of
+men, who had no difficulty in coming to a conclusion about the rector.
+
+“He has been studying hard, poor fellow!” said Gregg, with a wink—there
+is no dislike so mean and cruel as that which the ill-bred man feels
+for the gentleman—“reading the devil’s books all night!”
+
+“Nine minutes late!” said the lawyer. “That is what comes of having a
+young fellow who is always gadding about the country!”
+
+“He could not gad to a more congenial place than Holberton, I should
+think,” sneered a third.
+
+And then all the sins which the Homfrays had ever committed, and all
+those which had ever been laid to their charge, were cited to render
+the rector’s case more black. To do him justice, Mr. Bonamy took but a
+listener’s part in this. He was a shrewd man, and he did not believe
+that the rector could have had anything to do with an elopement from
+Holberton which had taken place before his name was heard in the
+county; but he was honestly assured that the young fellow had been
+sitting over the cards half the night. And as for the other crimes,
+perhaps he would commit them if he were left to follow his own foolish
+devices.
+
+“What is ill-gotten soon goes,” said one charitable person with a
+sneer. “You may depend upon it that what we hear is true.”
+
+“It is all of a piece,” said another. “A man does not have a follower
+of that kind for nothing?”
+
+“It comes over the devil’s back, and goes—you know how?” said a third.
+“But perhaps he is wise to make the most of it while it lasts. He is
+consequential enough now, but the Homfrays will not have much to say to
+him presently, you will see. A few weeks, and he will go.”
+
+“Well, let him go for the d—d dissipated gambling parson he is!” said
+Gregg coarsely, carried away by the unusual agreement with him. “And
+the sooner the better, say I!”
+
+The man beside him, a little startled by the doctor’s violence, turned
+round to make sure that they were not overheard, and found himself face
+to face with the rector, who, seeking to go out—as was not his custom,
+for he generally used the vestry door—by the porch, had walked into the
+midst of the group, even as Gregg opened his mouth. A glance at the
+young man’s reddening cheek and compressed lips apprised the startled
+group that he had overheard something at least.
+
+In one way it was the crisis of Lindo’s fate at Claversham. But he did
+not know it. If he had been wise—if he had been such a man as his
+curate, for instance; or if, without being wise, he had learned a
+little of the prudence which comes of necessity with years—he would
+have passed through them in silence, satisfied with such revenge as
+mute contempt could give him. But he was not old, nor very wise; and
+perhaps certain things had lately jarred on his nerves, so that he was
+not quite himself. He did not pass by in silence, but, instead, stood
+for a moment. Then, singling Gregg out with a withering glance, “I am
+much obliged to you for your good opinion,” he said to him; “but I
+should be still more obliged if you would swear elsewhere, sir, and not
+in the porch of my church. Leave the building! Go at once!” And he
+pointed toward the churchyard with the air of an angry schoolmaster.
+
+But Gregg did not move. He was astounded by this direct attack, but he
+had the courage of numbers on his side, and, though he did not dare to
+answer, he did not budge. Neither did the others, though they felt
+ashamed of themselves, and looked all ways at once. Only one of them
+all met the rector’s glance fairly, and that was Mr. Bonamy. “I think
+the least said the soonest mended, Mr. Lindo,” he replied, with an
+acrid smile.
+
+“I am sorry that you did not think of that before,” retorted the young
+man, standing before them with his fair head thrown back, his clerical
+coat hanging loose, and his brow dark with indignation—for he had heard
+enough to be able to guess the cause of Gregg’s remark. “Do you come to
+church only to cavil and backbite?—to put the worst construction on
+what you cannot understand?”
+
+“Speaking for myself,” replied the church warden coolly, “the sole
+thing with which I can charge myself is the remark that you were
+somewhat late for service this morning, Mr. Lindo.”
+
+“And if I was?” said the clergyman in his haughtiest tone.
+
+“Well, of course there may have been a good cause for it,” the lawyer
+replied drily. “But it is a thing I have not known happen here for
+twenty years.”
+
+An altercation with these men, none of whom were well disposed toward
+him, and half of whom were tradespeople, was the last thing which the
+young rector should have allowed himself to enter upon, and the last
+thing indeed to which he would have condescended in his normal frame of
+mind. But on this unlucky morning he was nervous and irritable; and,
+finding himself thus bearded and defied, he spoke foolishly. “You
+trouble yourself too much, Mr. Bonamy,” he said impulsively, “with
+things which do not concern you! The parish, among other things. You
+have set yourself, as I know, to thwart and embarrass me; but I warn
+you that you are not strong enough! I shall find means to——”
+
+“To put me down, in fact?” said Mr. Bonamy.
+
+The young man hesitated, his face crimson. His opponent’s sallow
+features, seamed with a hundred astute wrinkles, warned him, if the
+covert smiles of the others did not, that, in his present mood at any
+rate, he was not a match for the lawyer. He had gone too far already,
+as he was now aware. “No,” he replied, swallowing his rage, “but to
+keep you to your proper province, as I hope to keep to mine. I wish you
+good morning.”
+
+He passed through them, and hurried away, more angry with them, and
+with himself for allowing them to provoke him, than he had ever felt in
+his life. He knew well that he had been foolish. He knew that he had
+lowered himself in their eyes by his display of temper. But, though he
+was bitterly annoyed with himself, the consciousness that the fault had
+originally lain with them, and that they had grievously misjudged him,
+kept his anger hot; for there is no wrath so fierce as the indignation
+of the man falsely accused. He called them under his breath an
+uncharitable, spiteful, tattling crew; and was so far unnerved in
+thought of them that he had entered his dining-room before he
+remembered that he was engaged to take the mid-day meal at the Town
+House, as he had done once or twice before, and then walked up with
+Laura to the schools.
+
+He washed and changed hurriedly, keeping his anger hot the while, and
+then went across, with the tale on the tip of his tongue. Again, if he
+had been wise, he would have kept what had happened to himself. But the
+soothing luxury of unfolding his wrong to some one who would sympathize
+was one he could not in his soreness forego.
+
+It was a particularly mild day for the fourth Sunday in Advent, and he
+found Miss Hammond still lingering before the door, She was looking for
+violets under the north wall, and he joined her, and naturally broke
+out at once with the story of what had happened. She was wearing a
+little close bonnet, which set off her piquant features and bright
+coloring to peculiar advantage, and, as far as looks went, no young man
+in trouble ever had a better listener. Only to stand beside her on the
+lawn, where the old trees shut out all view of the town and the
+troubles he connected with it, was a relief. Of course the search for
+violets was soon abandoned. “It is abominable!” she said. But her voice
+was like the cooing of a dove. She did everything softly. Even her
+indignation was gentle.
+
+“But you have not heard yet,” he protested, “why I really was late.”
+
+“I know what is being said,” she murmured, looking up at him, a gleam
+of humor in her brown eyes—“that you stayed at the Homfrays’ all night,
+playing cards. My maid told me as we came in—after church.”
+
+“Ha! I knew that they were saying something of the kind,” he replied
+savagely. He was so stern that she felt her little attempt at badinage
+reproved. “The true reason was of a very different description. What
+spiteful busybodies they are! I started to return last evening about
+half-past nine, but as I passed Baer Hill Colliery I learned that there
+had been an accident. A man going down the shaft with the night shift
+had been crushed—hurt beyond help,” the rector continued in a lower
+voice. “He wanted to see a clergyman, and the other pitmen, some of
+whom had seen me pass earlier in the day, stopped me and took me to
+him.”
+
+“How sad! How very sad!” she ejaculated. Somehow she felt ill at ease
+with him in this mood. With his last words a kind of veil had fallen
+between them.
+
+“I stayed with him the night,” the rector continued. “He died at
+half-past nine this morning. I came straight from that to this. And
+they say these things of me!”
+
+His voice, though low, was hard, and yet there was a suspicious break
+in it as he uttered his last words. Injustice touches a man, young and
+not yet hardened, very sorely; and he was overwrought. Laura, fingering
+her little bunch of violets, heard the catch in his voice, and knew
+that he was not very far from tears.
+
+She was almost terrified. She longed to respond, to say the proper
+thing, but here her powers deserted her. She was not capable of much
+emotion, unless the call especially concerned herself; and she could
+not rise to this occasion. She could only murmur again that it was
+abominable and too bad, or, taking her cue from the young man’s face,
+that it was very sad. She said enough, it is true, to satisfy him,
+though not herself; for he only wanted a listener. And when he went in
+to lunch Mrs. Hammond more than bore him out in all his denunciations;
+so that when he left to go to the schools he had fully made up his mind
+to carry things through.
+
+This unfortunate quarrel indeed did him great injury by throwing him
+into the arms of the party which his own pleasure and taste led him to
+prefer. He did not demur when Mrs. Hammond—meaning little evil, but
+expressing prejudices which at one time she had sedulously cultivated
+(for when one lives near the town one must take especial care not to be
+confounded with it)—talked of a set of butchers and bakers, and said,
+much more strongly than he had, that Mr. Bonamy must be kept in his
+place. A little quarrel with the lawyer, a little social relaxation in
+which the young fellow had lost sight of the excellent intentions with
+which he had set out, then this final quarrel—such had been the course
+of events; sufficient, taken with his own fastidiousness and
+inexperience, to bring him to this.
+
+Mrs. Hammond, standing at the drawing-room window, watched him as he
+walked down the short drive. “I like that young man,” she said
+decisively. “He is thrown away upon those people.”
+
+Laura, who had not gone to the schools, yawned. “He has not one-half
+the brains of some one else we know, mother,” she answered.
+
+“Who is that?”
+
+Laura did not reply; and probably her mother understood, for she did
+not press the question. “Well,” Mrs. Hammond said, after a moment’s
+silence, “perhaps he has not. I do not know. But at any rate he is a
+gentleman from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes.”
+
+“I dare say he is,” said Laura languidly.
+
+Mrs. Hammond, depositing her own portly form in a suitable chair,
+watched her daughter curiously. She would have given a good deal to be
+able to read the girl’s mind and learn her intentions; but she was too
+wise to ask questions, and had always given Laura the fullest liberty.
+She had watched the growth of the intimacy between her and Mr. Clode
+without demur, feeling a strong liking for the man herself, though she
+scarcely thought him a suitable match for her daughter. On the old
+rector’s death there had seemed for a few days a chance of Mr. Clode
+being appointed his successor; and at that time Mrs. Hammond had
+fancied she detected a shade of anxiety and excitement in her
+daughter’s manner. But Mr. Clode had not been appointed, and the new
+rector had come; and Laura had apparently transferred her favor from
+the curate to him.
+
+At this Mrs. Hammond had felt somewhat troubled—at first; but in a
+short time she had naturally reconciled herself to the change, the
+rector’s superiority as a _parti_ being indisputable. Yet still Mrs.
+Hammond felt no certainty as to Laura’s real feelings, and, gazing at
+her this afternoon, was as much in the dark as ever. That the girl was
+fond of her she knew; indeed, it was quite a pretty sight to see the
+daughter purring about the mother. But Mrs. Hammond was more than half
+inclined to doubt now whether Laura was fond, or capable of being fond,
+of any other human being except herself.
+
+She sighed gently as she thought of this, and rang the bell for tea. “I
+think we will have it early this afternoon,” she said, “I feel I want a
+cup.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+THE DOCTOR SPEAKS.
+
+
+The feelings with which the curate hastened on the conclusion of his
+own service, to learn what had happened at the great church may be
+imagined. His excitement and curiosity were not the less because he had
+to hide them. If there really had been no service—if the rector had not
+appeared—what a scandal, what a subject for talk was here! Even if the
+rector had appeared a little late there would still be whispering; for
+new brooms are expected to sweep clean. The curate composed his dark
+face, and purposely made one or two sick calls at houses which lay in
+his road, lest he might seem to ask the question he had to put too
+pointedly. By the time he reached the rectory he had made up his mind,
+judging from the absence of stir in the streets, that nothing very
+unusual had happened.
+
+“Is the rector in?” he asked the servant.
+
+“No, sir; he has gone to the Town House to dinner,” the girl answered.
+
+Involuntarily Mr. Clode frowned. “He was in time for service, I
+suppose?” he asked, more abruptly than he had intended.
+
+“Oh, yes, sir,” said the unconscious maid, who had not been to church.
+
+“Thank you; that is all,” he answered, turning away. So nothing had
+come of it after all! His heart was sick with disappointed hope as he
+turned into his own dull lodgings; and he felt that the rector in being
+in time had wronged him afresh, and by dining at the Town House had
+added insult to injury.
+
+But in the course of the day he learned how late the rector had been;
+and early next morning some rumor of the triangular altercation in the
+church porch also reached him—of course in an exaggerated form. As a
+fact, all Claversham was by this time talking of it, Mr. Bonamy’s
+companions, with one exception, having taken good care to make the most
+of his success, and to paint the rebuff he had administered to the
+clergyman in the deepest colors. The curate heard the news with a face
+of grave concern, but with secret delight; and, turning over in his
+mind what use he might make of it, came opportunely upon Gregg as the
+latter was going his rounds. “Hallo!” he said, calling so loudly that
+the doctor, who had turned away and would fain have retreated, could
+not decently escape, “you are the very man I wanted to see! What is
+this absurd story about the rector and you? There is not a word of
+truth in it, I suppose?”
+
+“I am sure I cannot say until you tell me what it is,” replied the
+doctor snappishly. He was a little afraid of the curate, who had a
+knack of being unpleasant without giving an opening in return.
+
+“Why, you seem rather sore about it,” Clode remarked, with apparent
+surprise.
+
+“I do not know why I should!” sneered the doctor, his face a dark red
+with anger.
+
+“Certainly not, if there is no truth in the story,” the curate replied,
+looking down with his eyes half shut at the chafing little man. “But I
+suppose it is all an invention, Gregg?”
+
+“It is not an invention that the rector was abominably rude to me,”
+blurted out the doctor, who scarcely knew with whom to be most
+angry—his present tormentor or the first cause of his trouble.
+
+“Pooh!” said Clode, “it is only his way.”
+
+“Then it is a d——, it is a most unpleasant way!” retorted the doctor
+savagely.
+
+“He means no harm,” said the curate gaily. “Why did you not answer him
+back?”
+
+Dr. Gregg’s face turned a shade redder. That was where the shoe
+pinched. Why had he not answered him back as Bonamy had, and not stood
+mute, acknowledging himself the smaller man? That was what was
+troubling him now, and making him fancy himself the laughing-stock of
+the town. “I will answer him back in a way he will not like!” he cried
+viciously, striving to hide his embarrassment under a show of bluster.
+
+“Tut-t-tut!” said the curate provokingly, “do not go and make a fool of
+yourself by saying things like that, when you know you don’t mean them,
+man. What can you say to the rector?”
+
+“I will ask him——”
+
+But what he would ask the rector was lost to the world, for at this
+moment Mr. Bonamy, coming down the pavement behind him, touched his
+sleeve. “I have just been to your house, doctor,” he said. “My youngest
+girl is a little out of sorts. Would you mind stepping in and seeing
+her?”
+
+Gregg swallowed his wrath, and was perhaps thankful for the
+interruption. He said he would; and the lawyer turned to Mr. Clode.
+“Well,” he said, “so you have made up your minds to fight?”
+
+“I am not quite sure,” said the curate, with caution—for he knew better
+than to treat Mr. Bonamy as he treated Gregg—“that I take you.”
+
+“You have not seen your principal this morning?” replied the lawyer,
+with a smile which for him was almost benevolent. The prospect of a
+fight was as the Mountains of Beulah to him.
+
+“Do you mean Mr. Lindo?” said the curate, with some curtness.
+
+The lawyer nodded. “I see you have not,” he continued. “Perhaps you do
+not know that he turned the sheep out of the churchyard after breakfast
+this morning, and half of them were found nearly a mile down the Red
+Lane!”
+
+“I did not know it,” said the curate gravely. But it was as much as he
+could do to restrain his exultation and show no sign save of concern.
+
+“Well, it is the fact,” the lawyer replied, rubbing his hands. “It is
+quite true he gave the church wardens notice to remove them a fortnight
+ago; but we did not comply, because we say it is our affair and not
+his. Now you may tell him from me that the only question in my mind is
+the form of action.”
+
+“I will tell him,’ said the curate with dignity.
+
+“Just so! What do you say, Gregg?”
+
+But the doctor, grinning from ear to ear with satisfaction, was gone;
+and the curate, not a whit less pleased in his heart, hastened to
+follow his example. “Bonamy one, and Gregg two,” he said softly to
+himself, “and last, but not least, one who shall be nameless, three! He
+has made three enemies already, and, if those be not enough, with right
+on their side, to oust him from his seat when the time comes, why, I
+know nothing of odds!”
+
+“With right on their side,” said the curate, even to himself. He had
+made no second attempt to pry into the rector’s secrets or to bring
+home to him a knowledge of the wrongfulness of his possession. But he
+did still believe, or persuaded himself he believed, that Lindo was a
+guilty man; or why should the young rector pension the old earl’s
+servant? And on this ground Clode justified to himself the secret
+ill-turns he was doing him. A month’s intimacy with the rector would
+probably have convinced an impartial mind of his good faith. But the
+curate had not, it must be remembered, an impartial mind; and we are
+all very apt to believe what suits us.
+
+To return to the little doctor, whom we left going on his way in a mood
+almost hilarious. He hoped that this fresh escapade of the rector’s
+would wipe out the memory of the fray in which he had himself borne so
+inglorious a part. And the more he thought of it, the greater was his
+admiration of the lawyer, whom he had long patronized in a timid
+fashion, much as a snub-nosed King Charlie treats the butcher’s
+mongrel. Now he felt a positive reverence for him. He began to think it
+possible that, with all his drawbacks of birth, Mr. Bonamy might become
+a personage in the town, and pretty Kate not so bad a match. The result
+of these musings was that, by the time he reached the lawyer’s door, an
+idea which he had first entertained on seeing the young clergyman’s
+admiration for Kate Bonamy, and which he had since turned over more
+than once in his mind, had become on a sudden a settled purpose. So
+much so that, as the doctor rang the bell, he looked at his hands,
+which were not so clean as they might have been, pished and pshawed,
+settled his light-blue scarf—which the next minute rose again to the
+level of his collar—and at length went in with a briskly juvenile air
+and an engaging smile.
+
+He found Daintry lying on the sofa in the dining-room down-stairs, her
+head on a white bed-pillow. Kate was leaning over her. The room was in
+some disorder—littered with this and that, a bottle of eau de Cologne,
+Mr. Bonamy’s papers, books, and sewing; but it looked comfortable, for
+it was very evidently inhabited. A fastidious eye might have thought it
+was too much inhabited; and yet proofs of refinement were not wanting,
+though the sofa was covered with horsehair, and the mirror was heavy
+and ugly, and the grate, knee-high, was as old as the Georges. There
+were flowers on the table and on the little cottage piano; and by the
+side of the last was a violin-case. Not many people in Claversham knew
+that Mr. Bonamy played the violin. Still fewer had heard him play, for
+he never did so out of his own house.
+
+Possibly a very particular suitor might have preferred to find Kate
+attending on her sister in a boudoir, free from a lawyer’s papers,
+furnished in a less solid and durable style, and with some livelier
+look-out than through wire blinds upon a dull street. But another might
+have thought that the office in which she was engaged, and the
+gentleness of her touch and eye as she went about it, made up for all
+deficiencies.
+
+Dr. Gregg was not of a nature to appreciate either the deficiencies or
+the set-off; but he had eyes for the girl’s grace and beauty, for the
+neatness of the well-fitting blue gown and the white collar and cuffs;
+and he shook hands with her and devoted himself to Daintry—who disliked
+him extremely and was very fractious—with the most anxious solicitude.
+“It is only a sick headache!” he said finally, with bluntness which was
+meant for encouragement. “It is nothing, you know.”
+
+“I wish you had it, then!” Daintry wailed, burying her face in the
+pillow.
+
+“It will be gone in the morning!” he retorted, rising and keeping his
+temper by an unnatural effort. “She will be the better for it
+afterward, Miss Bonamy.”
+
+To this Daintry vouchsafed no answer, unless a muttered “Rubbish!” was
+intended for one. He affected not to hear it, at any rate. He was all
+good-temper this morning; the unfortunate point about this being that
+his good nature was a shade more unpleasant than his usual snappish
+manner.
+
+At any rate Kate thought it so. She felt the instinctive repulsion
+which the wrong man’s wooing awakens in an unspoiled girl. She was
+conscious of an added dislike for the man as she held out her hand to
+him at the dining-room door. But she did not divine the cause of this;
+no, nor conjecture his purpose when he said in a low voice that he
+wished to speak to her outside.
+
+“May we go in here a moment?” he muttered, when the door was closed
+behind them. He pointed to the room on the other side of the hall,
+which Mr. Bonamy used in summer as a kind of office.
+
+“There is no fire there,” Kate answered. “I think it has been lighted
+up-stairs, however, if you will not mind coming up, Dr. Gregg. Is there
+anything”—this was when he had silently followed her into the stiff
+drawing-room, where the newly lit fire was rather smoking than
+burning—“serious the matter with her, then?”
+
+Her voice was steady, but her eyes betrayed the sudden anxiety his
+manner had aroused in her.
+
+“With your sister?” he answered slowly. He was really pondering how he
+should say what he had come to say. But, naturally, she set down his
+thoughtfulness to a professional cause.
+
+“Yes,” she said anxiously.
+
+“Oh, no—nothing, nothing. The truth is,” continued the doctor,
+following up a happy thought and smiling approval of it, “the matter is
+with me, Miss Bonamy.”
+
+“With you!” Kate exclaimed, opening her eyes in astonishment. Her
+momentary anxiety had put all else out of her head. She thought the
+doctor had gone mad.
+
+“Yes,” he said jerkily, but with a grin of tender meaning. “With me.
+And you are the cause of it. Now do not be frightened, Miss Kate,” he
+continued hastily, seeing her start of apprehension. “You must have
+known for a long time what I was thinking of.”
+
+“Indeed I have not,” Kate murmured in a low voice. She did not affect
+to misunderstand him.
+
+“Well, you easily might have known it then,” he retorted, forgetting
+his _rôle_ for an instant. “But the long and the short of it is that I
+want you to marry me. I do!” he repeated, overcoming something in his
+throat, and going on from this point swimmingly. “And you will please
+to hear me out, and not answer in a hurry, Miss Kate. If you like—but I
+should not think that you would want it—you can have until to-morrow to
+think it over.”
+
+“No,” she replied impulsively, her face crimson. And then she shut her
+mouth so suddenly, it seemed she was afraid to let anything escape it
+except that unmistakable monosyllable.
+
+“Very well,” he replied, comfortably settling his elbow upon the
+mantel-shelf, “that is as you like. I hope it does not want much
+thinking over myself. I will not boast that I am a rich man, but I am
+decently off. I flatter myself that I can keep my head above water—and
+yours, too, for the matter of that.”
+
+“Oh, it is not that,” she began hurriedly.
+
+He interrupted her. “No, no,” he said jocularly—-his last remarks had
+put him into a state of considerable self-satisfaction, and he no more
+thought it possible that she could or would refuse him than that the
+sky could fall—“do not buy a pig in a poke! Hear me out first, Miss
+Kate, and we shall start fair. You have been in my house, and, if it is
+not quite so large a house as this, I will answer for it you will find
+it a great deal more lively. You will see people you have never seen
+here, nor will see while your name is Bonamy. You will have—well,
+altogether a better time. Not that I mind myself,” the doctor added
+rather vaguely, forgetting the French proverb about those who excuse
+themselves, “what your name is, not I! So don’t you think you could say
+Yes at once, my dear?”
+
+He took a step nearer, thinking he had put it rather neatly and without
+any nonsense. Possibly, from his point of view of things, he had. But
+Kate fell back, nevertheless, as he advanced.
+
+“Oh, no,” she said, flushing painfully. “I could not! I could not
+indeed, Dr. Gregg! I am very sorry.”
+
+“Come, come,” he said, holding out his hand, his tone one of pleasant
+raillery. He had looked for some hanging back, some show of coyness and
+bashfulness, and was prepared to laugh in his sleeve at it—“I think you
+can, Kate. I think it is possible.” That it was in woman’s nature to
+say No to his comfortable home and the little lift in society he had to
+offer—it is only little lifts we appreciate, just up the next floor
+above us—he did not believe.
+
+But Kate soon undeceived him. “I am afraid it is not possible,” she
+said firmly. “Indeed, I may say at once, Dr. Gregg, that it is out of
+the question what you ask; though I thank you, I am sure.”
+
+His face fell ludicrously, and his thick black brows drew together in a
+very ominous fashion. But he still could not believe that she meant it.
+“I do not think you understand,” he said, “that the house is ready, and
+the furniture and servants, and there is nothing to prevent you
+stepping into it all whenever you please. I will take you away from
+this,” he continued, darting a scornful glance round the stiff chilly
+room—“I do not suppose that ten people enter this room in the
+twelvemonth—and I will show you something like life. It is an offer not
+many would make you. Come, Kate, do not be a little fool! You are not
+going to say No, so say Yes at once. And don’t let us shilly-shally!”
+
+He had put out his hand as he spoke and captured hers. But she snatched
+it from him again almost roughly, and stepped back. The right man might
+have used the words the doctor used, and might have scolded her with
+impunity, but not the wrong one. Her face, perplexed and troubled a
+moment before, grew decided enough now. “I am going to say No,
+nevertheless, Dr. Gregg,” she replied firmly. “I thought I had already
+said it. I will be as plain as you have been. I do not like you as a
+wife should like her husband, nor otherwise than as a friend.”
+
+“A friend!” he exclaimed. He gasped as a man does who has been plunged
+suddenly into cold water. His face was red with anger, and his little
+black eyes glared at her banefully. “Oh, bother your friendship!” he
+added violently. “I did not ask you for that!”
+
+“I have nothing else to give you,” she replied coldly.
+
+He gasped again. Refused by the Bonamy girl! He had never thought of
+this. He was beside himself with astonishment and anger, with
+disappointment and wounded pride. “You would not have said this a month
+ago!” he cried at last. “It was a pity I did not ask you then!”
+
+“I should have given you the same answer.”
+
+“Oh, no,” he replied ironically, swinging his hat to and fro. “Oh, no,
+you would not—not at all, Miss Bonamy. You would have sung to a very
+different tune if I had whistled to you before this niminy-piminy
+parson showed his face here! Do not think that I am such a fool as not
+to see which way the wind is blowing.”
+
+She stood looking at him in silence. But her face was scarlet, and her
+hand shook with rage.
+
+He saw it. “Pooh! do not think to frighten me!” he said coarsely. “When
+a man has offered to marry you he has a right to speak his mind! It
+will be a long time, I warrant you, before your parson will have the
+same right to speak. He was very great with you once, but he has quite
+another set of friends now, and I have not heard of him offering to
+introduce you to them.”
+
+“Will you go, Dr. Gregg?” she cried passionately, pointing to the door.
+His taunts were torture to her. “Will you go, or do you wish to stay
+and insult me further?”
+
+“I wish to say one thing, and I am going to say it,” he replied,
+nodding triumphantly. “You are pretty proud of your capture, but you
+need not be. He will not be much of a match when we have stripped him
+of the living he has no right to, and shown him the detected swindler
+he is! Wait! Wait a little, Miss Bonamy, and when your parson is
+ruined, as he will be before three months are out, high as he holds his
+head now, perhaps you will be sorry that you did not take my offer.
+Why,” he added scornfully, “I should say you are the only person in the
+parish who does not know he has no more right where he is than I have.”
+
+“Go!” she said, pointing to the door. Her face was white now.
+
+“So I will when I have said one more word——”
+
+“You won’t say it!” cried a sharp voice behind him. “You will go now!”
+He shot round, and there was Daintry with her hand on the door. Her
+hair was in disorder, her cheeks were flushed, her greenish-gray eyes
+were aglow with anger. He saw that she had overheard something of what
+had passed, and he began to tremble. He had said more than he intended.
+“You will go now, as Kate tells you,” she cried, “I will not have——”
+
+“Leave the room, child!” he snarled, stamping his foot.
+
+“I shan’t!” she retorted fiercely. “And if you do not go before I count
+three I will fetch the dogs.”
+
+Dr. Gregg made a movement as if he would have put her out of the room.
+But her presence had a little sobered him, and he stopped. “Look here,”
+he said.
+
+“One!” cried Daintry, who knew well that the doctor had a particular
+dislike for Snorum, and that the dog’s presence was at any time enough
+to drive him from the house.
+
+He turned and looked at Kate. She had gone to the window and was gazing
+out, her back to him, her figure proud and scornful. “Miss Bonamy,” he
+said.
+
+“Two!” cried Daintry. “Are you going, or shall I fetch Snorum?”
+
+With a muttered oath he took up his hat and went down the stairs and
+out into the street. There at the door he stood a moment, grinding his
+teeth, as the full sense of the calamity which had befallen him came
+home to him. He had stooped and been rejected—had been rejected by
+Bonamy’s daughter. He walked away, and still his anger did not
+decrease, but all the same he began to be a little thankful that the
+child had interrupted him. Had he gone on he might have said too much.
+As it was, he had an idea that perhaps he had said more than was quite
+prudent. And this had presently a wonderful effect in the way of
+sobering him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+THE RECTOR IS UNGRATEFUL.
+
+
+It was tea-time at Mr. Bonamy’s; five-thirty, that is, for the lawyer
+knew nothing of four o’clock tea. He would have stared had he been
+invited into the drawing-room to take it, or had his daughters produced
+one of those dainty afternoon tea-tables which were in use at the Town
+House, and asked him to support his cup and saucer on his knee.
+Compromises found no favor with him. Tea was a meal—he had always so
+considered it; and he liked to have the dining-room table laid for it.
+Possibly Kate, had she enjoyed more of her own way, would have altered
+this, as she would certainly have reformed the drawing-room. But Mr.
+Bonamy, who was in many things an indulgent father, was conservative in
+some. Four o’clock tea, and a daily use of the drawing-room, were
+refinements which he had always regarded as peculiar to a certain set;
+and in his pride he would not appear to ape its ways or affect to
+belong to it.
+
+Almost to the moment he came into the room, which was as bright and
+cheerful as gaslight and firelight could make it. Laying some letters
+under a weight on the mantel-shelf, he turned round and stood with his
+back to the fire-place. “How is the child?” he asked. “Has she gone to
+bed?”
+
+“Yes,” Kate answered, lifting the lid of the teapot and looking in; “I
+think she will be all right after a night’s rest.”
+
+“You do not look very bright yourself, Kate,” he remarked, as he sat
+down.
+
+Her cheek flushing, she made the old old woman’s excuse. “I have a
+little headache,” she said. “It will be better when I have had my tea.”
+
+He took a piece of toast and buttered it deliberately. “Gregg came and
+saw her?” he asked.
+
+“Yes. He said it was only a sick headache, and would pass off.”
+
+The lawyer made no comment at the moment, but went on eating his toast.
+But presently he looked up. “What is the matter, Kitty?” he said, not
+unkindly.
+
+Her face burning, she peered again quite unnecessarily into the teapot.
+Then she said hurriedly, “I have something I think I ought to tell you,
+father. Dr. Gregg has asked me to marry him!”
+
+“The deuce he has!” Mr. Bonamy answered in unmistakable surprise. For a
+moment he did not know what to say, or how to feel about it. If any one
+had informed the Claversham people that the lawyer’s moroseness was not
+natural to the man, but the product of many slights, the informant
+would have lost his pains. Yet in a great measure this was so; and
+first among the things which of late years had exercised Mr. Bonamy a
+keen anxiety for his daughters’ happiness had place. He had never made
+any move toward procuring them the society of their equals; nay, he had
+done many things in his pride calculated rather to prolong their
+exclusion. Yet all the time he had bitterly resented it, and had spent
+many a wakeful night in pondering gloomily over the dull lives to which
+they were condemned. Now—strange that he had never thought of it
+before—as far as Kate was concerned, he saw a way of escape opening.
+Gregg had a fair practice, some private means, a good house, a
+tolerable position in the town. In a word, he was perfectly eligible.
+Yet Mr. Bonamy was not altogether pleased. He had no fastidious
+objection to the doctor. It did not occur to him that the doctor was
+not a gentleman. But he did know that he did not like him.
+
+So the lawyer, after one exclamation of surprise, was for a moment
+silent. Then he asked, “Well Kate, and what did you say?”
+
+“I said No,” Kate answered in a low voice.
+
+“He is a well-to-do man,” Mr. Bonamy said, slowly stirring his tea.
+“Not that you need think of that only. But you are not likely to know
+many people who could make you more comfortable. I believe he is
+skilful in his profession. It is a chance, girl, not to be lightly
+thrown away.”
+
+“I could not—I could not marry him,” Kate stammered, her agitation now
+very apparent. “I do not like him. You would not have me——”
+
+“I would not have you marry any one you do not like!” Mr. Bonamy
+replied, almost sternly. “But are you sure that you know your own
+mind?”
+
+“Quite,” Kate said, with a shudder.
+
+“Hum! Well, well; there is no more to be said, then,” he answered.
+“Don’t cry, girl.”
+
+Kate managed to obey him. And in a moment, bravely steadying her voice,
+she asked, “What is this about Mr. Lindo, father? I heard that he had
+turned the sheep out of the churchyard.”
+
+The lawyer thought she asked the question in order to change the
+subject; and he answered briskly, with less reserve perhaps than he
+might have exercised at another time. “It is quite true,” he said. “He
+is making a fool of himself, as I expected. You cannot put old heads on
+young shoulders. However, what has happened has convinced me of one
+thing.”
+
+“What is that?” she asked in a low voice.
+
+“That he does not know himself that he has no right here.”
+
+“But has he none?” she murmured, in the same tone. He noticed that her
+manner was conscious and embarrassed; but naturally he set this down to
+the former topic. He thought she was trying to avoid a scene, and he
+admired her for it.
+
+“Well, I doubt if he has,” he answered, “though I am not quite sure
+that people have not lit upon a mare’s nest. It is the talk of the town
+that there was some mistake in his presentation, and there is a
+disreputable fellow hanging on his heels, and apparently living on him,
+who is said to be in the secret, and to be making the most of it. I do
+not believe that now, however,” the lawyer continued, falling into a
+brown study and speaking as much to himself as to her. “If he knew he
+were insecure he would live more quietly than he does. All the same, he
+is likely to learn a lesson he will not forget.”
+
+“How?” she asked, her spoon tinkling tremulously against the side of
+the cup, and her head bent low over it, as though she saw something
+interesting in the lees.
+
+Mr. Bonamy laughed in his out-of-door manner. “How?” he said grimly.
+“Well, if there be any mistake he is going the right way to suffer by
+it. If he kept quiet, and went softly, and made no enemies, very little
+might be said and nothing done when the mistake came out. But as it
+is—well, he has made a good many enemies, and the chances are that he
+will lose the best berth he will ever get into. It will be bad for him,
+but the better for the parish.”
+
+“Don’t you think,” said Kate very gently, “that he means well?”
+
+Mr. Bonamy grunted. “Perhaps so; but he does not go the right way to do
+it,” he rejoined. “His good fortune has turned his head, and he has put
+himself in the hands of the Hammond set, and that does not do at
+Claversham.” The lawyer ended with a harsh laugh, which said more
+plainly than any words, that it never would do while John Bonamy was
+church warden at Claversham.
+
+“It seems a pity,” Kate said, almost under her breath. She had never
+raised her eyes from the tea-tray since the subject was introduced, and
+if her father had looked closely he would have seen that her very ears
+were scarlet. “Could you not give him a word of warning?”
+
+“I!” said the lawyer, with asperity. “Certainly not; why should I?”
+
+Kate did not say, and her father, with another impatient word or two,
+rose from the table, and presently went out. She rang the bell
+mechanically and had the table cleared, and in the same mood turned to
+the fire and, putting her feet on the fender, began to brood over the
+coals, which were burning red and low in the grate.
+
+Five times—five times only, counting the Oxford escapade as one, she
+had spoken to him; and they—“they” meant Claversham, for it was her
+chief misery to believe that the whole town was talking of her—had made
+this of it! They had noticed his attentions, and had seen them
+scornfully withdrawn when he learned who she was. Oh, it was cowardly
+of him—cowardly! And yet—and yet—so her thoughts ran, taking a fresh
+turn—had he ever said a word or cast a glance at her which meant
+anything—which all the world might not have heard and seen? No, never.
+And, with that, her anger changed its course and ran against Gregg. Him
+she would never forgive. It was his evil imagination, his base
+suspicions, which had built it all up; and Mr. Lindo was no more to
+blame—though she a little despised him for his weakness and
+conventionality—than she was herself.
+
+It seemed most sad that he should be ruined because no one would say a
+word to warn him. Brooding over the fire, she felt a girl’s pity for
+the young man’s ill-fortune. She forgot the last month, during which
+she had spoken to him but once—and then he had seemed embarrassed and
+anxious to be gone—and remembered only how frank and gay he had been in
+the first blush of his hopes at Oxford, how pleasantly he had smiled,
+how well and yet how quaintly his new dignity had sat upon him, and how
+naïvely he had shaken it off at times and shown himself a boy, with a
+boy’s love of fun and mischief. Or, again, she remembered how
+thoughtful he had been for them, how considerate, how much at home in
+scenes new to them, with how lordly an air he had provided for their
+comfort. Oh, it was a pity—a grievous pity, that his hopes should end
+in such a disaster as Mr. Bonamy foretold! And all because no one would
+say a friendly word to him!
+
+The next day (Tuesday) was a wet day—a sleety, blusterous winter day,
+and she did not go out. But on the Wednesday, as the rector crossed the
+churchyard after reading the Litany, he saw Miss Bonamy passing his
+door. He fancied, with a little astonishment—for she had constantly
+evinced the same avoidance of intimacy with him which had at first
+piqued him—that she slightly checked her pace so as to meet him. And,
+to tell the truth, the rector was half pleased and half annoyed. He had
+hardened his heart and set his face to crush Mr. Bonamy.
+
+He had in his pocket a letter from the lawyer, warning him that, unless
+he altered his course, a writ would be served upon him. And a dozen
+times to-day he had in his mind called the church warden hard names.
+But yet he was not absolutely ill-pleased to see Miss Bonamy. He felt a
+certain excitement in the _rencontre_ under the circumstances. He would
+meet her magnanimously, and of course she would ignore the quarrel. He
+hated Mr. Bonamy for a puritanical old pettifogger; but that was no
+reason why he should be rude to his daughter.
+
+Lindo saw, when he was a few paces from her and had raised his hat,
+that her face expressed much more emotion, if not embarrassment, than
+seemed to be called for by the occasion. And naturally this
+communicated itself to him. “I have not seen you for a long time,” he
+said, as he shook hands. Perhaps the worst thing he could have said
+under the circumstances.
+
+She assented, however. “No,” she said, sloping her umbrella behind her
+so as to keep off the wind and a half-frozen drizzle with which it was
+laden. And, as she did this, her eyes met his gallantly. “But I am
+glad, Mr. Lindo,” she continued, “that I have met you to-day, because I
+have something I want to say to you.”
+
+On the instant he vowed within himself that it would be in bad taste,
+in the worst taste, if she referred to the quarrel or to parish
+matters. And he answered very frigidly. “What is that, Miss Bonamy?” he
+said. “Pray speak on.”
+
+She detected the change of tone, and for a second her gray eyes
+flashed. But she had come to say something. She had counted the cost,
+and nothing he could do should prevent her saying it. She had been
+awake all night, torturing herself with imagining the things he would
+think of her. But she was not to be deterred by the reality. “Do you
+know, Mr. Lindo,” she said steadily, “what is being said of you in the
+town?”
+
+“A good many hard things.” he answered half lightly and half bitterly.
+“So I have reason to believe. But I do not think that they will affect
+me one way or the other, Miss Bonamy.”
+
+“And so,” she answered, with spirit, “you will not thank any one for
+telling you of them? That is what you mean, is it not?”
+
+He was very sore, and her interference annoyed him excessively—possibly
+because he valued her good opinion. He would not deny the feeling she
+imputed to him. “Possibly I do mean something of that kind,” he said.
+“Where ignorance is bliss—you know.”
+
+“Yet there is one thing,” she replied, “being said of you in the town,
+which I think you should be told, Mr. Lindo. Your friends probably will
+not hear it, or, if they do, they will not venture to tell you of it.”
+
+“Indeed,” he answered. “You pique my curiosity.”
+
+“It is being commonly said,” she rejoined, looking down for the first
+time, “that you have no right to the living, and were appointed by some
+mistake, or—or fraud.”
+
+He did not answer her at once. He was so completely taken by surprise
+that he stood looking at her with his mouth open. His first and better
+impulse was to laugh heartily. But what he did was to say in a very
+quiet way, “Indeed. That is being said, is it? It is quite true I had
+not heard it. May I ask, Miss Bonamy, if you had it from your father?”
+
+If his tone had been cold before, it was freezing now. But she was not
+to be daunted, and she answered with considerable presence of mind, “I
+heard from my father that that was the report in the town, but I also
+heard him express his disbelief in the greater part of it.”
+
+“I am much obliged to him,” said the rector through his closed teeth.
+“He did not think I had been guilty of fraud, then?”
+
+“No, he did not,” Kate muttered, her voice faltering for the first
+time.
+
+“Indeed. I am much obliged to him.”
+
+He had received it even worse than she had expected. It was terrible to
+go on in the face of such scorn and incredulity. But to stop there was
+to have done only evil, as Kate knew, and she persevered. “I have one
+more thing I wish to say, if you will permit me,” she continued
+steadying her voice and striving to speak in as indifferent a manner as
+possible.
+
+He bowed, his face hard and contemptuous.
+
+The wind had shifted slightly, and, to protect herself from the small
+rain which was falling, she changed her position, so as to face the
+churchyard. He saw only her profile. If he looked proud, involuntarily
+he remarked how proud she looked also—how pure and cold was the line of
+her features, softened only by the roundness of her chin. “I am told,”
+she said in a low voice, “that the fewer enemies you make, and the more
+quietly you proceed, the greater will be the chance of your remaining
+when the mistake is found out. Pray,” she said more sharply, for he had
+raised his hand, as if to interrupt, “have patience for a moment, Mr.
+Lindo. I shall not trouble you again. I only wish you to know that
+those who have cause to dislike you—I do not mean my father, there are
+others—are congratulating themselves that you are playing into their
+hands, and consider that every disagreement between you and any part of
+the parish is a weapon given them, to be used when the crisis comes.”
+
+“When the mistake is found out?” he said, grimly repeating her words.
+“Or the fraud? But I forgot—Mr. Bonamy does not believe in that!”
+
+“You understand me, I think,” she said, ignoring the latter part of his
+speech.
+
+“And may I ask,” he continued, his eyes on her face, “who my
+ill-wishers are?”
+
+“I do not think that matters,” she replied.
+
+“Then, at least, why am I indebted to you for this warning?”
+
+His tone as he asked the question was as contemptuous as before. And
+yet Kate felt that this she must answer. To refuse to answer it, or to
+evade it, would be to lay herself open to surmises of all kinds.
+
+“I thought it a pity that you should fall into a trap unwarned,” she
+answered, looking away at the yew-trees. “And it seemed to me that, for
+several reasons, your friends were not likely to warn you.”
+
+“There, I quite agree with you,” he retorted quickly. “My friends would
+not have believed in the trap.”
+
+“Perhaps not,” she said, outwardly unmoved.
+
+“I am astonished that you did; I am astonished that you should have
+believed anything so absurd, Miss Bonamy!” he said severely. At that
+moment, as it happened, two people came round the flank of the church.
+The one was the curate; the other was Dr. Gregg. Kate looked at them,
+and her face flamed. The rector looked, and felt only relief. They
+would afford him an excuse to be gone. “Ah, there is Mr. Clode,” he
+said indifferently. “I was just looking for him. I think, if you will
+excuse me, Miss Bonamy, I will seize the opportunity of speaking to him
+now.” And raising his hat, with a formality which one of the men took
+to be a pretence and a sham, he left her and walked across to them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+LAURA’S PROVISO.
+
+
+When a mine has been laid, and the fuse lit, and the tiny thread of
+smoke has begun to curl upward, it is apt to seem a long time—so I am
+told by those who have stood and watched such things—before the earth
+flies into the air. So it seemed to Stephen Clode. The curate looked to
+see an explosion follow immediately upon the rector taking the decisive
+step of turning out the sheep. But week after week elapsed, until
+Christmas was some time gone, and nothing happened. Mr. Bonamy, with a
+lawyer’s prudence, wrote another letter, and for a time, perhaps out of
+regard to the season, held his hand. There was talk of Lord Dynmore’s
+return, but no sign of it as yet. And Dr. Gregg snapped and snarled
+among his intimates, but in public was pretty quiet.
+
+It was noticeable, however, that the rector was invited to none of the
+whist-parties which were a feature of the town life at this season; and
+to those who looked closely into things and listened to the gossip of
+the place it was plain that the breach between him and the bulk of his
+parishioners was growing wider. The rector was much with the Hammonds,
+and carried his head high—higher than ever, one of his parishioners
+thought since a talk she had had with him in the churchyard. The habit
+of looking down upon a certain section of the town, because they were
+not quite so refined as himself, because they were narrow in their
+opinions, or because the Hammonds looked down upon them, was growing
+upon him. And he yielded to it none the less because he was all the
+time dissatisfied with himself. He was conscious that he was not acting
+up to the standard he had set himself on coming to the town. He was not
+living the life he had hoped to live. He visited his poor and gave
+almost too largely in the hard weather, and was diligent at services
+and sermon-writing. But there was a flaw in his life, and he knew it;
+and yet he had not the strength to set it right.
+
+All this Mr. Clode might have observed—he was sagacious enough; but for
+the time his judgment was clouded by his jealousy, and in his
+impatience he fancied that the rector’s troubles were passing away.
+Each visit Lindo paid to the Town House, each time his name was coupled
+with Laura Hammond’s, as people were beginning to couple it, chafed the
+curate’s sore afresh and kept it raw. So that even Stephen Clode’s
+self-restraint and command of temper began to fail him, and more than
+once he said sharp things to his commanding-officer, which made Lindo
+open his eyes in unaffected surprise.
+
+Clode began to feel indeed that the position was becoming intolerable;
+and though he had long ago determined that the waiting-game was the one
+he ought to play, he presently—in the first week of the new
+year—changed his mind.
+
+Lindo had announced his intention of devoting the afternoon—it was
+Wednesday—to his district; and, taking advantage of this, the curate
+thought he might indulge himself in a call at the Town House without
+fear of unpleasant interruption. He would not admit that he had any
+other motive in going there than just to pay a visit—which he certainly
+owed. But in truth he was in a dangerous humor. And, alas! when he had
+been ushered along the thickly carpeted passage and entered the
+drawing-room, there, comfortably seated in the half-light before the
+fire, the tea-things gleaming beside them, were Laura and the rector!
+
+The curate’s face grew dark. He almost felt that Lindo, who had really
+been driven in by the rain, had betrayed him; and he shook hands with
+Laura and sat down in complete silence, unable to trust himself to
+answer the rector’s cheery greeting by so much as a word. It was all he
+could do to answer “Thank you,” when Miss Hammond asked him if he would
+take tea. She, of course, saw that something was amiss, and felt not a
+little awkward between her two friends; but luckily the rector remained
+ignorant and at his ease—he saw nothing, and went on talking. It was
+the best thing he could have done, only, unfortunately, he had to do
+with a man whom nothing in his present mood could please.
+
+“I am glad you have turned up at this particular moment,” Lindo said.
+“Let me have your opinion. Miss Hammond says that I am pauperizing the
+town by giving too much away.”
+
+“If you are half as generous at our bazaar on the 10th,” she retorted,
+“you will do twice as much good.”
+
+“Or half as much evil!” he said lightly.
+
+“Have it that way, if you like,” she answered laughing.
+
+The curate set his teeth together in impotent rage. They were so easy,
+so unconstrained, on such excellent terms with one another. When Laura,
+who was secretly quaking, held out the toast to him and let her eyes
+dwell for an instant on his, he looked away stubbornly. “Were you
+asking my opinion?” he said in a voice he vainly strove to render cold
+and dispassionate.
+
+“To be sure,” said the rector, stirring his tea and enjoying himself.
+“Miss Hammond is not impartial. She is biassed by her bazaar.”
+
+If he had known the strong passions that were at work on the other side
+of the tea-table! But the curate had his back to the shaded lamp, and
+only a fitful gleam of fire-light betrayed even to Laura’s suspicious
+eyes that he was not himself. Yet, when he spoke, Lindo involuntarily
+started, so thinly veiled was the sneer in his tone. “Well, there is
+one pensioner, I think, you would do well to strike off your list,” he
+said. “He does not do you much credit.”
+
+“Who is that? Old Martin at the Gas House?”
+
+“No, the gentleman at the Bull and Staff!” replied the curate bluntly.
+
+“At the Bull and Staff? Who is that?”
+
+“Felton.”
+
+For a moment the rector looked puzzled. He had almost forgotten the
+name of Lord Dynmore’s servant. Then he colored slightly. “Yes, I know
+whom you mean,” he said, taken aback as much by the other’s
+unlooked-for tone as by the mention of the man. “But I did not know he
+lived at the Bull and Staff. It is not much of a place, is it?”
+
+“I should say that it was very nearly the worst house in the town!”
+said the curate.
+
+“Indeed! I will speak to him about it.”
+
+“I would speak to him about getting drunk, if I were you!” Clode
+replied with a short laugh. “He is drunk six days in the week; every
+day except Saturday, when he comes to you and pulls a long face above a
+clean neck-cloth. He is the talk of the town!”
+
+The rector stared; naturally wondering what on earth had come to the
+curate to induce him to take that line. He was rather surprised than
+offended, however, and merely answered, “I am sorry to hear it. I will
+speak to him about it.”
+
+“Who is this person?” Miss Hammond asked hurriedly. “I do not think
+that I know any one in the town of that name.” The subject seemed to be
+a dangerous one, but anything was better than to leave the curate free
+to conduct the discussion.
+
+He it was, however, who answered her. “He is a _protégé_ of the
+rector’s!” he said, with a laugh that was undisguisedly offensive. “You
+had better ask him.”
+
+“He is a servant of Lord Dynmore’s,” Lindo said, speaking to her with
+studious politeness, and otherwise ignoring Clode’s interruption.
+
+“But why you find him in board and lodging at the Bull and Staff free,
+gratis, and for nothing,” interposed the curate again with the same
+rudeness, “passes my comprehension!”
+
+“Perhaps that is my business,” said the rector, losing patience.
+
+Both men stood up. Laura rose, too, with a scared face, and stood
+gazing at them, amazed at the storm which had so suddenly arisen. The
+curate’s height, as the two stood confronting one another, seemed to
+give him the advantage; and his dark rugged face, kindling with
+long-repressed feelings, wore the provoking smile of one who, confident
+in his own powers, has wilfully thrown down the glove and is determined
+to see the matter through. The rector’s face, on the other hand, was
+red; and, though he faced his man squarely and threw back his head with
+the haughtiness of his kind, his anger was mixed with wonder, and it
+was plain that he was at a loss to understand the other’s ebullition or
+to decide how to deal with it. There was a moment’s silence, which
+Laura had not the presence of mind, nor the curate the will, to break.
+Then the rector said, “Perhaps we had better let this drop for the
+moment, Mr. Clode.”
+
+“As you will,” replied the curate recklessly.
+
+“Well, I do will,” Lindo rejoined, with some _hauteur_. And he looked,
+still standing erect and expectant, as if he thought that Clode could
+not do otherwise than take his leave.
+
+But that was just what the curate had not the slightest intention of
+doing. Instead, with a cynical smile, he coolly sat himself down again.
+His superior’s eyes flashed with redoubled anger at this, which seemed
+to him, after what had passed, the grossest impertinence; but Mr. Clode
+in his present mood cared nothing for that, and made it very plain that
+he did not. “Will you think me exacting if I ask for another cup of
+tea, Miss Hammond?” he said quietly.
+
+That was enough to make the rector’s cup run over. He did not wait to
+hear Laura’s answer, but himself said. “Perhaps I had better say good
+evening, Miss Hammond.”
+
+“You will not forget the bazaar?” she answered, making no demur, but at
+once holding out her hand.
+
+There was a faint note of appeal in her voice which begged him not to
+be angry, and yet he was angry. “The bazaar?” he said coldly. “Oh, yes,
+I will not forget it.”
+
+And with that he took up his hat and went, feeling much as a man does
+who, walking along a well-known road, has put his foot into a hole and
+fallen heavily. He was almost more astonished and aggrieved than hurt.
+
+When he was gone there was silence in the room. I do not know whether
+Laura had been conscious, while the two men wrangled before her, that
+she was the prize of the strife, and so, like the maidens of old, had
+been content to stand by passive and expectant, satisfied to see the
+best man win, or whether she had been too much alarmed to interpose.
+But certain it is that, when she was left alone with the curate, she
+felt almost as uncomfortable as she had ever felt in her life. She
+tried to say something indifferent, but for once she was too nervous to
+frame the words. And Mr. Clode, instead of assisting her, instead of
+bridging over the awkwardness of the moment, as he should have done,
+since he was the person to blame for it all, sat silent and morose,
+brooding over the fire and sipping his tea. At last he spoke. “Well,”
+he said abruptly, turning his dark eyes suddenly on hers. “Which is it
+to be, Laura?”
+
+He had never spoken to her in that tone before, and had any one told
+her that morning that she would submit to it, she would have laughed
+her informant to scorn. But there was a new-born masterfulness in the
+curate’s manner which cowed her. “I do not know what you mean,” she
+murmured, her face hot, her heart beating.
+
+“I think you do,” he answered sternly, without removing his eyes from
+her. “Is it to be the rector, or is it to be me, Laura? You must choose
+between us.”
+
+She recovered herself with a kind of gasp. “Are you not going a little
+too fast?” she said, trying to smile, and speaking with something of
+her ordinary manner. “I did not know that my choice was limited to the
+two you mention, Mr. Clode, or that I had to choose one at all.”
+
+“I think you must,” was his only answer. “You must choose between us.”
+Then, with a sudden movement, he rose and stood over her. “Laura!” he
+said in a different tone, in a low voice, which thrilled through her
+and awoke feelings and emotions hitherto asleep. “Laura, do not play
+with me! I am a man. Is he more? Is he as much? I love you with all my
+being! He cares only to kill time with you! Will you throw me over
+because he is a little richer, because I am the curate and he is the
+rector? If so, well, tell me, and I shall understand you!”
+
+It was not the way she had thought he would end. The force, the
+abruptness, the almost menace of the last four words took her by
+surprise and subdued her afresh. If she had had any doubt before which
+of the two men had her liking, she had none now. She knew that Clode’s
+little finger was more to her than Lindo’s whole hand; for, like most
+women, she had a secret admiration for force, even when exercised
+without much regard to good taste.
+
+“You need not speak to me like that,” she said, in gentle deprecation
+of his manner.
+
+He stooped over her. “Laura,” he said, “do you really mean it? Do you
+mean you will——”
+
+“Wait, please!” she answered, recovering a little of her ascendency.
+“Give me a little time. I want to think something out.”
+
+But time to think was just what he feared—ignorant as yet of his true
+position—to give her; and his face grew dark and sullen again. “No,” he
+said, “I will not!”
+
+She rose suddenly. “You will do as I ask you now,” she said, asserting
+herself bravely, “or I shall leave you.”
+
+He bowed silently, and she sat down again. “Sit down, please,” she said
+to him. He obeyed her. “Now,” she continued, raising her hand so as to
+shade her eyes from the fire, “I will be candid with you, Mr. Clode. If
+I had no other alternative than the one you have mentioned—to choose
+between you and Mr. Lindo—I—I should certainly prefer you. No!” she
+continued sharply, bidding him with her hand to keep his seat, “hear me
+out, please. You have not stated the case correctly. In the first
+place—well, you put me in the awkward position of having to confess
+that Mr. Lindo has made no such proposal as you seem to fancy; and,
+secondly, there are others in the world.”
+
+“I do not care,” the curate exclaimed, his deep voice trembling with
+exultation—“I do not care though there be millions—now!”
+
+She moved her hand, and for a second her eyes, full of a tenderness
+such as he had never seen in them before, met his. The look drew him
+from his seat again, but she sent him back to it by an imperious
+gesture. “I said I would be candid,” she continued, “and I intend to be
+so, though until a few minutes ago I never thought that I should speak
+to you as I am doing.”
+
+“You shall never repent it,” he answered fondly.
+
+“I hope not,” she rejoined. But then she paused and was silent.
+
+He sat waiting patiently for a while; but, as she still said nothing,
+he rose. “Laura,” he said.
+
+“Yes, I know,” she answered, almost abruptly. “But candor does not come
+very easily, sir, under certain circumstances. Don’t you know you have
+made me afraid of you?”
+
+He showed that he would have reassured her in the most convincing and
+practical manner. But, notwithstanding her words, she had regained her
+power and presence of mind, and she repelled him.
+
+“Wait until you have heard what I have got to say,” she said. “It is
+this. I would not marry Mr. Lindo because he is a rector with a living
+and a position—not though he were six times a rector! But all the same
+I will not marry a curate! No,” she added in a lower tone, and with a
+glance which intoxicated him afresh—“not though he be you!”
+
+He stood silent, looking down at her, waiting for more. Neither by word
+nor gesture did he express dissent. It is possible he already
+understood, and felt with her.
+
+“To marry a curate,” she continued in a low voice, “is, for a girl such
+as I am, failure. I have held my head rather high, and I have stood by
+and seen other girls married. Therefore to marry a curate, after all,
+would be an ignominious failure. Are you very angry with me?” she
+continued quietly, “or do you understand?”
+
+“I think I understand,” he answered, with just a tinge of bitterness in
+his tone.
+
+“And despise me? Well, you must. I told you I was going to be candid,
+and perhaps it is as well—as well, I mean, that you should know me,”
+she replied, apparently unmoved.
+
+“I am content,” he answered, catching her spirit.
+
+“And so am I,” she said. “To no one else in the world would I have said
+as much as I have said to you. To no other man would I say, ‘Win a
+living, and I will be yours!’ But I say it to you. Do as much as that
+for me and I will marry you, Stephen. If you cannot, I cannot.”
+
+“You are very prosaic,” he replied, lapsing into bitterness again.
+
+“Oh, if you are not content” she retorted.
+
+He did not let her finish the sentence. “You will marry me on the day I
+obtain a living?” he asked.
+
+“I will,” she answered bravely.
+
+She was standing up now, and he too—standing where the rector had stood
+an hour before. She let him pass his arm round her waist, but when he
+would have drawn her closer to him, and bent his head to kiss her, she
+hung back. “No,” she said, blushing hotly, “I think”—with a shy
+laugh—“that you are making too certain, sir.”
+
+“Do you wish me _not_ to succeed?” he replied, looking down at her; and
+it must be confessed the lover’s _rôle_ became him better than
+nine-tenths of those who knew his dark, rugged face would have
+believed.
+
+She shook her head, smiling.
+
+“Then if you wish me success,” he replied, “you must send me out with
+some guerdon of your favor.” And this time she did not resist. He drew
+her to him and kissed her thrice. Then she escaped from him and took
+refuge on the other side of the fireplace.
+
+“You must not do that again,” she said, biting her lip and trying to
+look at him reproachfully. “At any rate, you have had your guerdon now.
+When you come back a victor I will crown you. But until then we are
+friends only. You understand, sir?”
+
+And, though he demurred, he presently said he understood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE LETTERS IN THE CUPBOARD.
+
+
+When Stephen Clode left the Town House after his interview with Laura,
+he was in a state of exaltation—lifted completely out of his ordinary
+cool and calculating self by what had happened. It was raining, but he
+had gone some distance before he remarked it, and even then he did not
+at once put up his umbrella, but strode along through the darkness, his
+thoughts in a whirl of triumph and excitement. The crisis had come
+suddenly, but he had not been found unequal to it. He had gone in
+through the gates despondent, and come out in joy. He had pitted
+himself against his rival, and had had the best of it. He had wooed,
+and, almost in spite of his mistress, had won!
+
+He did not for the first few moments consider whether his altercation
+with the rector was likely to have unpleasant consequences, nor did he
+trouble himself about the manner in which he was to do Laura’s bidding.
+Such considerations would come later—with the reaction. For the present
+they did not occur to him. It was enough that Laura might be his—that
+she never could be the rector’s.
+
+He felt the need, in his present excited mood, of some one to speak to,
+and instead of turning into his own lodgings he passed on to the
+reading-room, a large, barely furnished room, looking upon the top of
+the town, and used as a club by the leading townsfolk and a few of the
+local magnates who lived near. He entered it, and, to his surprise,
+found the archdeacon seated under the naked gas-burners, interested in
+the “Times.” The sight filled him with astonishment, for it was seldom
+the county members used the room after sunset.
+
+“Why, Mr. Archdeacon,” he said—his tongue naturally hung loose at the
+moment, and a _bonhomie_, difficult to assume at another time, came
+easily to him now—“what in the world brings you here at this hour?”
+
+The archdeacon laid down his paper. “Upon my word I think I was half
+asleep,” he said. “I am in for the ‘Free Foresters’’ supper. I thought
+the hour was half-past six, and came into town accordingly, whereas I
+find it is half-past seven. I have been here the best part of
+three-quarters of an hour killing time.”
+
+“But I thought that the rector always said grace for the ‘Free
+Foresters,’ the curate answered in some surprise.
+
+“It has been the custom for them to ask him,” the archdeacon replied
+cautiously. “By the way you did it last year, did you not?”
+
+“Yes, for Mr. Williams. He was confined to his room.”
+
+“I thought so. Well, this year these foolish people seem to have taken
+a fancy not to have the rector, and they came to me. I tried to
+persuade them to have him, but it was no good. And so,” the archdeacon
+added, in a lower tone, “I thought it would look less like a slight if
+I came than if any other clergyman—you, for instance—were the clerical
+guest.”
+
+“To be sure,” said the curate warmly. “It was most thoughtful of you.”
+
+The archdeacon hitched his chair a little nearer the fire. He felt the
+influence of the curate’s sympathy. The latter had said little, but his
+manner warmed the old gentleman’s heart, and his tongue also grew more
+loose. “I wonder whether you know,” he said genially, rubbing his hands
+up and down his knees, which he was gently toasting, and looking
+benevolently at his companion, “how near you were to having the living,
+Clode?”
+
+“Do you mean Claversham?” replied the curate, experiencing a kind of
+shock at this reference to the subject so near his heart.
+
+“Yes, of course.”
+
+“I never thought I had a chance of it!”
+
+“You had so good a chance,” responded the archdeacon, nodding his head
+wisely, “that only one thing stood between you and it.”
+
+“May I ask what that was?” the curate rejoined, his heart beating fast.
+
+“A promise. The earl had promised his old friend that he should have
+this living. Lord Dynmore told me so himself, the last time I saw him.
+That would be nearly a year ago, when poor Williams was already
+ailing.”
+
+“Well, that I supposed to be the case,” Clode answered, his tone one of
+disappointment. “But I do not quite see how I was affected by it—more,
+I mean, than others, archdeacon.”
+
+“That is what I am going to tell you, only it must not go farther,” the
+archdeacon answered. “Lord Dynmore told me of this promise _à propos_
+of a resolution he had just come to—namely, that, subject to it, he
+intended in future to give his livings (he has seven in all, you know)
+to the curate, wherever the latter had been two years at least in the
+parish, and stood well with it. I am not sure that I agree with him;
+but he is a conscientious man, though an odd one, and he had formed the
+opinion that that was the right course. So, come now, if anything
+should happen to Lindo you would certainly drop into it. I am not quite
+sure,” added the archdeacon confidentially, “though no one likes Lindo
+better than I do, that yours would not have been the better
+appointment.”
+
+The curate disclaimed this so warmly and loyally that the archdeacon
+was more than ever pleased with him; and, half-past seven striking,
+they parted at the door of the reading-room on the best of terms with
+one another. The archdeacon crossed to his supper and speech, and the
+curate turned into his rooms, and, throwing himself into the big
+leather chair before the fire, fixed his eyes on the glowing coals, and
+began to think—to apply what he had just heard to what he had known
+before.
+
+A living? He had got to get a living. And without capital to invest in
+one, or the favor of a patron, how was it to be done? The bishop? He
+had no claim there. He had not been long enough in the diocese, and he
+knew nothing of the bishop’s wife. There was only one living he could
+get, only one living upon which he had a claim, and that was
+Claversham. It all came back to that—with this added, that he had now a
+stronger motive than ever for ejecting Lindo from it, and the absolute
+knowledge to boot that, Lindo ejected, he would be his successor.
+
+Stephen Clode’s face grew dark and gloomy as he reached this stage in
+his reflections. He believed that the rector was enjoying what he had
+no right to enjoy, but still he would fain have had no distinct part in
+depriving him of it. He would have much preferred to stand by and, save
+by a word here and there, by little acts scarcely palpable, and quite
+incapable of proof—do nothing himself to injure him. He knew what
+loyalty was, and would fain have been loyal in big things at least. But
+he did not see how it could be done. He fancied that the stir against
+the rector was dying away. Bonamy had not moved. Gregg was a coward,
+and of this matter of the “Free Foresters” he thought nothing. Probably
+they would return to their allegiance another year, and among the poor
+the rector’s liberality would soon make friends for him. Altogether,
+the curate, getting up and walking the room restlessly and with a
+knitted brow, was forced to the conviction that, if he would be helped,
+he must help himself, and that now was the time. The iron must be
+struck before it cooled. Something must be done.
+
+But what? Clode’s mind reverted first to the discharged servant, and
+discussed more than one way in which he might be used. There was an
+amount of danger, however, in tampering with him which the thinker’s
+astuteness did not fail to note, and which led him presently to
+determine to leave Felton alone. Perhaps he had made as much capital
+out of him as could be made with safety.
+
+From him the curate’s thoughts passed naturally to the packet of
+letters in the cupboard at the rectory, the letters which he had once
+held in his hand, and which he could not but believe would prove the
+rector’s knowledge of the fraud he was committing. Those letters!
+Clode, walking up and down the room, pishing and pshawing from time to
+time, could not disentangle his thoughts from them. The narrow chance
+which had prevented him reading them before somehow made him feel the
+more certain of their value now—the more anxious to hold them again in
+his hands.
+
+Were they still in the cupboard, he wondered. He had retained, not with
+any purpose, but in pure inadvertence, the key which he had mentioned
+to the rector; and he had it now. He took it from the mantel-shelf,
+toyed with it, dropped it into his pocket. Then he took up his hat, and
+was going abruptly from the room when the little servant who waited on
+him met him. She was bringing up his simple dinner. The curate’s first
+impulse was to order it to be taken down and kept warm for him. His
+second, to resume his seat and eat it hastily. When he had finished—he
+could not have said an hour later what he had had—he took his hat again
+and went out.
+
+Two minutes saw him at the rectory door, where he was just in time to
+meet the rector going out. Lindo’s face flushed as he saw who his
+visitor was, and there was more than a suspicion of haughtiness in his
+tone as he greeted him. “Good-evening,” he said. “Do you want to see
+me, Mr. Clode?”
+
+“If you please,” the curate answered simply. “May I come in?”
+
+For answer, Lindo silently held the door open, and Clode passed through
+the hall into the library. He was in the habit of entering this room a
+dozen times a week, but he never did so after leaving his own small
+lodgings without being struck by its handsome proportions, by the grave
+harmonious color of its calf-lined walls, and the air of studious quiet
+which always reigned within them. Of all the rector’s possessions he
+envied him this room the most. The very sight of the shaded lamp
+standing on the revolving bookcase at the corner of the hearth, and of
+the little table beside it, which still bore the rector’s coffee-cup
+and a tiny silver ewer and basin, aroused his spleen afresh. But he
+gave no outward sign of this. He stood with his hat in one hand, his
+other leaning on the table, and his head slightly bent. “Rector,” he
+said, “I am afraid I behaved very badly this afternoon.”
+
+“I certainly thought your manner rather odd,” replied the rector
+shortly. But he was half disarmed already.
+
+“I was annoyed, much annoyed, about a private matter,” the curate
+proceeded in an even, rather despondent tone. “It is a matter about
+which I expect I shall presently have to take your opinion. But for the
+present I am not at liberty to name it. However, I was in trouble, and
+I foolishly wreaked my annoyance upon the first person I came across.”
+
+“That was, unfortunately, myself,” said Lindo, smiling.
+
+“It would have been very unfortunate indeed for me, if you were as some
+rectors I could name,” the curate replied gravely, still with his eyes
+cast down. “As it is—well, I think you will accept my apology.”
+
+“Say no more about it,” answered the rector hastily. There was nothing
+he hated so much as a scene. “Have a cup of coffee, my dear fellow. I
+will ring for a cup and saucer.” And, before the curate could protest,
+Lindo was at the bell and had rung it, his manner almost the manner of
+a boy.
+
+“Sit down, sit down!” he continued. “Sarah, a cup and saucer, please.”
+
+“But you were going out,” protested the curate, as he complied.
+
+“Only to the post with some letters,” the rector explained. “I will
+send Sarah instead.”
+
+Clode sprang up again, a peculiar flush on his dark cheek, and a glint
+as of excitement in his eye.
+
+“No, no,” he said, “I am putting you out. If you were going to the
+post, pray go. You can leave me here and come back to me, if that be
+all.”
+
+The rector hesitated, his letters in his hand. He might send Sarah. But
+it wanted a few minutes only of nine o’clock, and, besides, he did not
+approve of the maids going out so late. “Well, I think I will do as you
+say,” he answered, feeling that compliance was perhaps the truest
+politeness; “if you are sure that you do not mind.”
+
+“I beg you will,” the curate said warmly.
+
+The cup and saucer being at that moment brought in, the rector nodded
+assent. “Very well; I shall not be two minutes,” he said. “Take care of
+yourself while I am away.”
+
+The curate, left alone, muttered, “No, you will be at least four
+minutes, my friend!” and waited, with his cup poised, until he heard
+the outer door closed. Then he set it down. Assuring himself by a
+steady look that the windows were shuttered, he rose and, quietly
+crossing the room, as a man might who wished to examine a book, he
+stood before the little cupboard among the shelves. Perhaps, because he
+had done the thing before, he did not hesitate. His hand was as steady
+as it had ever been. If it shook at all it was with eagerness. His task
+was so easy and so devoid of danger, under the circumstances, that he
+even smiled darkly, as he set the key in the lock, at the thought of
+the more clumsy burglar whom he had detected there. He turned the key
+and opened the door. Nothing could be more simple. The packet he wanted
+lay just where he had looked to find it. He took it out and dropped it
+into his breast-pocket, and, long before the time which he had given
+himself was up, was back in his chair by the fire, with his coffee-cup
+on his knee.
+
+He might have been expected to feel some surprise at his own coolness.
+But, as a fact, his thoughts were otherwise employed. He was longing,
+with intense eagerness, for the moment when he might take the next
+step—when he might open the packet and secure the weapon he needed. He
+fingered the letters as they lay in their hiding place, and could
+scarcely refrain from taking them out and examining them there and
+then. When Lindo returned, and broke into the room with a hearty word
+about the haste he had made, the curate’s answer betrayed no
+self-consciousness. On the contrary, he rather underplayed his part,
+his eye and voice being for, a moment so absent as to surprise his
+host. The next instant he was aware of this, and conducted himself so
+warily during the half-hour he remained that he entirely erased from
+the rector’s mind the unlucky impression of the afternoon.
+
+By half-past nine he was back in his own room, at his table, his hat
+thrown this way, his umbrella that. It took him but a feverish moment
+to turn up the lamp and settle himself in his chair. Then he took out
+the packet of letters, and, untying the string which bound them
+together, he opened the first—there were only six of them in all. This
+was the one which he had partially read on the former occasion—Messrs.
+Gearns & Baker’s first letter. He read it through now at his leisure,
+without interruption, once, twice, thrice, and with a long breath laid
+it down again, and sat gazing, with knitted brows, into the shadow
+beyond the lamp’s influence. There was not a word in it, not an
+expression, which helped him; nothing to show the recipient that he was
+not the Reginald Lindo for whom the living was intended.
+
+The curate sat awhile before he opened the second, and that one he read
+more quickly. He dealt in the same way with the next, and the next.
+When, in a short minute or two, he had read them all and they lay in a
+disordered pile before him—some folded and some unfolded, just as they
+had dropped from his hands—he leaned back in his chair, and, folding
+his arms, sat frowning darkly into vacancy. There was not a word to
+help him in any one of them, not a sentence which even tended to
+convict the rector. He had been at all his pains for nothing. He had——
+
+The sound of a raised voice asking for him below, and the hasty tread
+of a foot mounting the stairs two at a time, roused him with a start
+from the dream of disappointment. In a second he was erect, motionless,
+and listening, his hand upon and half covering the letters. A hasty
+knock on the outside of his door, and the touch of fingers on the
+handle, seemed at the last moment to nerve him to action. It was all
+but too late. As the rector came hurriedly into the room, the curate,
+his face pallid, and the drops of perspiration standing on his brow,
+swept the letters aside and drew a newspaper partly over them.
+“What—what is it?” he muttered, stooping forward, his hands on the
+table.
+
+The rector was too full of the news he had brought to observe the
+other’s agitation, the more as the lamp was between them, and his eyes
+were dazzled by the light. “Why, what do you think Bonamy has done?” he
+answered excitedly, as he closed the door behind him. He was breathing
+quickly with the haste he had made, and, uninvited, he dropped into a
+chair.
+
+“What?” said the curate hoarsely. He dared not look down at the table
+lest he should direct the other’s eyes to what lay there, but he was
+racked as he stood there with the fear that some damning corner of the
+paper, some scrap of the writing, should still be visible. The shame of
+possible discovery poured like a flood over his soul. “What is it?” he
+repeated mechanically. He had not yet recovered enough presence of mind
+to wonder why the rector should have paid this untimely call.
+
+“He has served me with a writ!” Lindo replied, his face hot with haste
+and indignation, his lips curling. “At this hour of the night, too! A
+writ for trespass in driving out the sheep from the churchyard.”
+
+“A writ!” the curate echoed. “It is very late for serving writs.”
+
+“Yes. His clerk, who handed it to me—he came five minutes after you
+left—apologized, and took the blame for that on himself, saying he had
+forgotten to deliver it on leaving the office.”
+
+“For trespass!” said the curate stupidly. What a fool he had been to
+meddle with those letters! Why had he not had a little patience? Here,
+after all, was the catastrophe for which he had been longing.
+
+“Yes, in the Queen’s Bench Division, and all the rest of it!” replied
+the rector; and then he waited to hear what the curate had to say.
+
+But Clode had nothing to say, except “What shall you do?”
+
+“Fight!” replied Lindo briskly, getting up and approaching the table.
+“That of course. And it was about that I came to you. I do not think
+there is any lawyer here I should like to employ. Did not you tell me
+the other day who the archdeacon’s were? Some people in Birmingham, I
+think?”
+
+“I think I did,” the curate answered. He had overcome his first fear,
+and, as he spoke, looked down at the table, on which he was still
+leaning. His hasty movement had disordered his own papers, but none of
+the tell-tale letters were visible so far as he could see. But what if
+the rector took up the newspaper? Or casually put it aside? The curate
+grew hot again, despite his great self-control. He felt himself on the
+edge of a precipice down which he dared not cast his eye.
+
+“Well, can you give me their address?” the rector continued.
+
+“Certainly!” the curate answered. Indeed he leapt at the suggestion,
+for it seemed to offer some chance of escape—at least a way by which he
+might rid himself of his visitor.
+
+“Just write it down, that is a good fellow, then,” said the rector,
+unconscious of what was passing in his mind.
+
+The curate said he would, and tore off at random—-the rector was
+leaning his hand on the newspaper, and might at any moment be taken
+with a fancy to raise it—the back sheet of the first stray note that
+came to his fingers, and wrote the address upon it. “There, that is
+it,” he said; and as he gave it to Lindo—he had written it standing up
+and stooping—he almost pushed him away from the table. “That will serve
+you, I think. They may be trusted, I am told. The best you can do, I am
+sure, will be to place the matter in their hands at once.”
+
+“I will write before I sleep!” the younger clergyman answered heartily.
+“You cannot think how the narrowness of these people provokes me! But I
+will not keep you now. I see you are busy. Come round early in the
+morning, will you, and talk it over?”
+
+“I will come the moment I have had breakfast,” the curate answered,
+making no attempt to detain his visitor.
+
+The rector thereupon going, he stood eyeing the newspaper askance until
+the other’s footsteps died away on the pavement outside. Then he swept
+it off and stood contemplating the half-dozen letters with abhorrence.
+He loathed and detested them. They had suddenly become to him such an
+incubus as his victim’s body becomes to the murderer. The desire which
+had tempted him to the crime was gone, and he felt them only as a
+burden. They were the visible proof of his shame. To keep them was to
+become a thief, and yet he shrank with a nervous terror quite new and
+strange to him from the task of returning them—of going to the study at
+the rectory and putting them back in the cupboard. It had been easy to
+get possession of them; but to return them seemed a task so thankless,
+and withal so perilous, that he quailed before it. With shaking hands
+he bundled them together and locked them in the lowest drawer of his
+writing table. He would return them to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THE BAZAAR.
+
+
+Long before noon on the next day the service of the writ at the rectory
+was pretty well known in the town, and the course which the
+churchwardens had taken was freely canvassed in more houses than one.
+But they had on their side all the advantages of prescription, while of
+the rector people said that there was no smoke without fire, and that
+he would not have become the subject of so many comments and
+strictures, and the centre of more than one dispute, without being in
+fault. There had been none of these squabbles in old Mr. Williams’s
+time, they said. Tongues had not wagged about him. But then, they
+added, he had not aspired to drive tandem with the Homfrays! The town
+had been good enough for him. He had not wanted to have everything his
+own way, or thought himself a little Jupiter in the place. His head had
+not been turned by a little authority conferred too early, and
+conferred, if all the town heard was true, in some very odd and
+unsatisfactory manner.
+
+To know that all round you people are saying that your conceit has led
+you into trouble is not pleasant. And in one way and another this
+impression was brought home to the young rector more than once during
+these days, so that his cheek flamed as he passed the window of the
+reading-room, or caught the half-restrained sniggle in which Gregg
+ventured to indulge when in company. Nor were these annoyances all
+Lindo had to bear. The archdeacon scolded him roundly for placing the
+matter in the hands of the lawyers without consulting him. Mrs. Hammond
+looked grave. Laura seemed less friendly than a while back. Clode’s
+conduct was odd, too, and unsatisfactory. He was sometimes enthusiastic
+and loyal enough, ready to back up his superior as warmly as could be
+wished, and anon he would show himself the reverse of all this—sullen,
+repellent, and absolutely unsympathetic.
+
+So that the rector was not having a very sunny time, albeit the heat of
+conflict kept him warm; and he threw back his head and set his fair
+pleasant face very hard as he strode about the town, his long-tailed
+black coat flapping behind him. He hugged himself more than ever on the
+one thing which his opponents could not take from him. When all was
+said and done, he must still be rector of Claversham. If his promotion
+had not brought him as much happiness as he had expected, if he had not
+been able to do in his new position all he had hoped, the promotion and
+the position were yet undeniable. Knowing so well all the circumstances
+of his appointment, he never gave two thoughts to the curious story
+Kate Bonamy had told him. He was sorry that he had treated her so
+cavalierly, and more than once he had thought with a regret almost
+tender of the girl and the interview. But, for the rest, he treated it
+as the ignorant invention of the enemy. Possibly on the strength of
+certain ’Varsity prejudices he was a little too prone to exaggerate the
+ignorance of Claversham.
+
+On the day before the bazaar a visitor arrived in Claversham, in the
+shape of a small, dark, sharp-featured man, with a peculiarly alert
+manner, whom the reader will remember to have met in the Temple. Jack
+Smith, for he it was—we parted from him last at Euston Station—may have
+come over on his own motion, or acting upon a hint from Mr. Bonamy,
+who, since the refusal of Gregg’s offer, had thought more and more of
+the future which lay before his girls. The house had seemed more and
+more dull, not to him as himself, but to him considering it in the
+night-watches through their eyes. Hitherto the lawyer had not
+encouraged the young Londoner’s visits, perhaps because he dreaded the
+change in his way of life he might be forced to make. But now, whether
+he had given him a hint to come or not, he received him with undoubted
+cordiality.
+
+Almost the first question Jack asked, Daintry hanging over the back of
+his chair and Kate smiling in more subdued radiance opposite him, was
+about his friend, the rector. Fortunately, Mr. Bonamy was not in the
+room. “And how about Lindo?” he asked. “Have you seen much of him,
+Kate?”
+
+“No, we have not seen much of him,” she answered, getting up to put
+something straight which was not much awry before.
+
+“Father has served him with a writ, though,” Daintry explained, nodding
+her head seriously.
+
+Jack whistled. “A writ!” he exclaimed. “What about?”
+
+“About the sheep in the churchyard. Mr. Lindo turned them out,” Kate
+explained hurriedly, as if she wished to hear no more upon the subject.
+
+But Jack was curious; and gradually he drew from them the story of the
+rector’s iniquities, and acquired, in the course of it, a pretty
+correct notion of the state of things in the parish. He whistled still
+more seriously then. “It seems to me that the old man has been putting
+his foot in it here,” he said.
+
+“He has,” Daintry answered solemnly, nodding any number of times. “No
+end!”
+
+“And yet he is the very best of fellows,” Jack replied, rubbing his
+short black hair in honest vexation. “Don’t you like him?”
+
+“I did,” said Daintry, speaking for both of them.
+
+“And you do not now?”
+
+The child reddened, and rubbed herself shyly against Kate’s chair.
+“Well, not so much!” she murmured, Jack’s eyes upon her. “He is too big
+a swell for us.”
+
+“Oh, that is it, is it?” Jack said contemptuously.
+
+He pressed it no farther, and appeared to have forgotten the subject;
+but presently, when he was alone with Kate, he recurred to it. “So,
+Lindo has been putting on airs, has he?” he observed. “Yet, I thought
+when Daintry wrote to me, after you left us, that she seemed to like
+him.”
+
+“He was very kind and pleasant to us on our journey,” Kate answered,
+compelling herself to speak with indifference. “But—well, you know, my
+father and he have not got on well; so, of course, we have seen little
+of him lately.”
+
+“Oh, that is all, is it?” Jack answered, moving restlessly in his
+chair.
+
+“That is all,” said Kate quietly.
+
+This seemed to satisfy Jack, for at tea he surprised her—and, for
+Daintry, she fairly leapt in her seat—by calmly announcing that he
+proposed to call on the rector in the course of the evening. “You have
+no objection, sir, I hope,” he said, coolly looking across at his host.
+“He has been a friend of mine for years, and though I hear you and he
+are at odds at present, it seems to me that that need not make mischief
+between us.”
+
+“N—no,” said Mr. Bonamy slowly. “I do not see why it should.”
+Nevertheless, he was greatly astonished. He had heard that Jack and Mr.
+Lindo were acquainted, but had thought nothing of it. It is possible
+that the discovery of this friendship existing between the two led him
+to take new views of the rector. He continued, “I dare say in private
+he is not an objectionable man.”
+
+“Quite the reverse, I should say!” Jack answered stoutly.
+
+“You have known him well?”
+
+“Very well.”
+
+“Umph! Then it seems to me it was a pity he did not confine himself to
+private life,” ejaculated the lawyer, with some scorn. “As a rector I
+do not like him.”
+
+“I am sorry for that,” Jack answered cheerfully. “But I have not known
+much of him as a rector, though indeed, as it happened, he brought the
+offer of the living straight to me, and I was the first person who
+congratulated him on his promotion.”
+
+Mr. Bonamy lifted his eyes slowly from the teacup he was raising to his
+lips, and looked fixedly at his visitor, an expression much resembling
+strong curiosity in his face. If a question was on the tip of his
+tongue he refrained from putting it, however, and Jack, who by no means
+wished to hear the tale of his friend’s shortcomings repeated, said no
+more until they rose from the table. Then he remarked, “Lindo dines
+late, I expect.”
+
+He put the question to Kate, but the lawyer answered it. “Oh, yes, he
+does everything which is fashionable,” he answered drily. And Jack,
+putting this and that together, began to see still more clearly how the
+land lay, and on what shoals his friend had wrecked his popularity.
+
+About half-past eight he went to the rectory, but found that Lindo was
+not at home. The door was opened to him, however, by Mrs. Baker, who
+had often seen the barrister in the East India Dock Road, and knew him
+well; and she pressed him to walk in and wait. “He dined at home, sir,”
+she explained. “I think he has only slipped out for a few minutes.”
+
+He followed her accordingly across the panelled hall to the study,
+where for a moment a whimsical smile played upon his face as he viewed
+its spacious comfort. The curtains were drawn, the fire was burning
+redly, and the lamp was turned half down. The housekeeper made as if
+she would have turned it up, but he prevented her. “I like it as it
+is,” he said genially. “This is better than No. 383, Mrs. Baker?”
+
+“Well, sir,” she answered, looking round with an air of modest
+proprietorship, “it is a bit more like.”
+
+“What would you have, Mrs. Baker?” he asked, laughing. “The bishop’s
+palace?”
+
+“We may come to that in time, sir,” she answered, folding her arms
+demurely. “But I do not know that I would wish it! He has a peck of
+troubles now, and there would be more in a palace, I doubt.”
+
+“I agree with you,” Jack replied, laughing. “Troubles come thick about
+an apron, Mrs. Baker.”
+
+“Ay, the men see to that!” retorted the good lady, getting the last
+word and going away delighted.
+
+Left alone, Jack lay back in an arm-chair, and, nursing his hat,
+wondered what Mrs. Baker would say when she discovered his connection
+with the Bonamys. He had not been seated in this posture two minutes
+before he heard the door of the house open and shut, and a man’s tread
+cross the hall. The next moment the study door opened, and a tall man
+appeared at it, and stood holding it and looking into the room. The
+hall lamp was behind the newcomer, and Jack, seeing that he was not the
+rector, sat still.
+
+The stranger, satisfied apparently that the room was empty, stepped in
+and closed the door behind him; and, rapidly crossing the floor, stood
+before one of the bookcases. He took something—a key Jack judged by
+what followed—from his pocket, and with it he swiftly threw open a
+cupboard among the books.
+
+There was nothing remarkable in the action; but the stranger’s manner
+was hurried and nervous, and the looker-on leaned forward, curious to
+learn what he was about. He expected to see him take something from the
+cupboard. Instead, the man appeared to put something in. What it was,
+however, Jack could not discern, for, leaning forward too far in his
+anxiety to do so, he upset his hat with some noise on to the floor.
+
+The man turned on the instant as if he had been subjected to a galvanic
+shock, and stood gazing in the direction of the sound. Jack heard him
+draw in his breath with the sharp sound of sudden fear, and even by
+that light could see that his face was drawn and white. The barrister
+rose quietly in the gloom, the stranger at sight of him leaning back
+against the book-case as if his legs refused to support him. Yet he was
+the first to speak. “Who is there?” he said, almost in a whisper.
+
+“A visitor,” Jack answered simply. “I have been waiting to see Mr.
+Lindo.”
+
+The curate—for he it was—drew a long breath, apparently of relief, and
+in reality of such heartfelt thankfulness as he had never known before.
+“What a start you gave me!” he murmured, his voice as yet scarcely
+under his control. “I am Mr. Clode, Mr. Lindo’s curate. I was putting
+up some parish papers, and thought the room was empty.”
+
+“So I saw,” Jack answered drily. “I am afraid your nerves are a little
+out of order.” The curate muttered something which was inaudible, and,
+raising his hand to the book-case, locked the cupboard door and put the
+key in his pocket. Then he went to the lamp and turned it up. At the
+same moment Jack, recovering his hat, advanced into the circle of
+light, and the two men looked at one another. “I am afraid if you wish
+to see the rector you will be disappointed,” the curate said, with
+something of hauteur in his voice, assumed to hide his mistrust. “He
+was to spend the evening at Mrs. Hammond’s. I doubt if he will be back
+before midnight.”
+
+“Then I must call another time,” said Jack practically.
+
+“If I see him first, can I tell him anything for you?” the curate
+persisted. Who was this man? Could he be a detective? he was wondering.
+
+But Jack was so far from being a detective that he had already
+dismissed the suspicions he had at first entertained. “I think not,
+thank you,” he answered; “I will call again.”
+
+“Can I give him any name?” Clode asked in despair.
+
+“Well, you might say Jack Smith called,” the barrister answered, “if
+you will be so kind.”
+
+They parted at the door, and Clode went back into the house, where he
+speedily learned all that Mrs. Baker knew of Mr. Smith. It dispelled
+his first fear. The man was not a detective; still it sent him home
+gloomy and ill at ease. What if so intimate a friend of the rector’s as
+this Smith seemed to be should tell him of his curate’s visit to the
+cupboard and the excuse which on the spur of the moment he had
+invented? It might go ill with him then. What explanation could he
+give? He tried to consider such a mishap impossible, or at all events
+unlikely; but not with complete success. More than ever he wished that
+he had not interfered with the letters.
+
+To return to Jack. Such mild festivities as the bazaar were not
+uncommon in Claversham, but the Bonamy household at any rate had not
+been wont to look forward to them with anything approaching
+exhilaration. It is wonderful how some children growing up in any kind
+of social shadow learn the fact; and Daintry Bonamy, scarcely less than
+her sister, had come to regard the annual flower-show, the school
+sports, and the regatta with distaste and repugnance, as occasions of
+little pleasure and much humiliation. It was Mr. Bonamy’s will,
+however, that they should attend, though he never went himself; and
+times innumerable they had done so, outwardly in pretty dresses and
+becoming hats, inwardly in sack-cloth and ashes.
+
+Jack’s presence changed all this, and for once the girls went up to
+dress quite gaily. If Kate reflected that Jack’s intimacy with the
+rector would be likely to bring them also into contact with him, she
+said nothing; and from Jack—for the present at least—it was mercifully
+hidden that, with all his kindness, his unfailing good-humor, his wit,
+his devotion to her, his chief attraction in the girl’s eyes lay in the
+fact that he was another man’s friend.
+
+When they entered the Assembly Room it was already well filled, the
+main concourse being about the two stalls at the end of the room over
+which the archdeacon’s wife and Mrs. Hammond respectively ruled. Here
+the great people were mainly to be seen; and an acute observer would
+soon have discovered that between those who habitually hung about this
+end and those who surrounded the four lower stalls there was a great
+gulf fixed. Those on the one side of this examined the dresses of those
+on the other with indulgent interest, and, for the most part, through
+double eyeglasses; while those on the other hand either returned the
+compliment and made careful notes, or looked about deferentially for a
+glance of recognition. The man who should have bridged that gulf, who
+should have been equally at home with Mrs. Archdeacon and the
+hotel-keeper’s wife, was the rector. But as the rector had entered, the
+unlucky word “writ” had caught his ears, and he was in his most
+unpleasant humor. He felt that the whole room was talking of him—the
+majority with a narrow dislike, a few with sympathy. Was it unnatural
+that, forgetting his situation, he should throw in his lot with his
+friends, who were ever so much the pleasanter, the wittier, the more
+amusing, and present a smiling front of defiance to his opponents or
+those whom he thought to be such? At any rate, that was what he was
+doing, and no one could remark the carriage of his head or the
+direction of his eyes without feeling that there was something in the
+town complaint that the new clergyman was above his work.
+
+Jack and his party did not at once come across him. They found enough
+to amuse them at the lower end of the room—the more as to the barrister
+the great and little with whom he rubbed shoulders were all one.
+Strange to say, he did not discern any great difference even in their
+dress! With Daintry hanging on his arm and Kate at his side he was
+content, until, turning suddenly in the thick of the crowd to speak to
+the elder girl, he saw her face turn crimson. At the same moment she
+bowed slightly to some one behind him. He looked round quickly, with a
+sharp jealous pang at his heart, to see who had called forth this show
+of emotion, and found himself face to face with the rector.
+
+Lindo had looked forward to this meeting; he had prepared himself for
+it; and yet, occurring in this way, it shook him out of his
+self-possession. He colored almost as deeply as the girl had, and,
+though he held out his hand with scarcely a perceptible pause, the
+action was nervous and jerky. “By Jove! is it you, Jack?” he exclaimed,
+his tone a mixture of old cordiality and new antagonism. “How do you
+do, Miss Bonamy?” and he held out his hand to the girl also, who just
+touched it with her fingers and drew back. “It is pleasant to see your
+cousin’s face again,” he went on more glibly, yet clearly not at his
+ease even now. “I was sorry that I was not in last night when he
+called.”
+
+“Yes, I was sorry to miss you,” Jack answered slowly, his eyes on his
+friend’s face. He could not quite understand matters. The girl’s
+embarrassment had been almost a revelation to him, and yet it flashed
+across his mind now that the cause of it might have been only the
+quarrel between her father and the rector. The same thing might account
+for Lindo’s shy, ungenial manner. And yet—and yet he could not quite
+understand it, and, whether he would or no, his face grew hard. “You
+heard I had looked in?” he added.
+
+“Yes; Mrs. Baker told me,” Lindo answered, moving to let some one pass
+him, and glancing aside to smile a recognition.
+
+“She looks the better for the change, I think.”
+
+“Yes; she gets more fresh air now.”
+
+“It does not seem to have done you much good.”
+
+“No?”
+
+Certainly there was something amiss. These were old, tried college
+friends, or had been so a few weeks back, and they had nothing more to
+say to one another than this! The rector’s self-consciousness began to
+infect the other, sowing in his mind he knew not what suspicions. So
+that, if ever words of Daintry’s were welcome, they were welcome now.
+“Jack is going to stay a week,” she said inconsequently, standing on
+one leg the while with her arm through Jack’s and her big eyes on the
+rector’s face.
+
+“I am very glad to hear it,” Lindo rejoined. “He will find me at home
+more than once in the week, I hope.”
+
+“I will come and try,” said Jack.
+
+“Of course you will!” replied the rector, with a flash of his old
+manner. “I shall be glad if you will remind him of his promise, Miss
+Bonamy.”
+
+Kate murmured that she would.
+
+“You like your house?” said Jack.
+
+“Oh, very much—very much indeed.”
+
+“It is an improvement on No. 383?” continued the barrister, rather
+drily.
+
+“It is—very much so!”
+
+The words were natural. They were the words Jack would have expected.
+But, unfortunately, Gregg at that moment passed the rector’s elbow, and
+the latter’s manner was cold and shy—almost as if he resented the
+reference to his old life. Jack thought he did, and his lip curled.
+Fortunately, Daintry again intervened. “Here is Miss Hammond,” she
+said. “She is looking for you, Mr. Lindo.”
+
+The rector turned as Laura, threading her way through the press, came
+smiling toward him. She glanced with some curiosity at Jack, and then
+nodded graciously to Kate, whom she knew at the Sunday school and from
+meeting her on such occasions as this. “How do you do, Miss Bonamy?”
+she said pleasantly. “Will you pardon me carrying off the rector? We
+want him to come to tea.”
+
+Kate bowed, and the rector took off his hat to the girls. Then he waved
+an awkward farewell toward Jack, muttered “See you soon!” and went off
+with his captor.
+
+And that was all! Jack turned away with his cousins to the nearest
+stall, and bought and chatted. But he did both at random. His thoughts
+were elsewhere. He was a keen observer, and he had seen too much for
+comfort, yet not enough for comprehension. Nor did the occasional
+glance which he shot at Kate’s preoccupied face, as she bent over the
+wool-work and “guaranteed hand-paintings,” tend to clear up his doubts
+or render his mood more cheerful.
+
+Meanwhile the rector’s frame of mind, as he rejoined his party, was not
+a whit more enviable. He was angry with himself, angry with his friend.
+The sight of Jack standing by Kate’s side had made his own conduct to
+the girl at his last interview with her appear in a worse light than
+before—more churlish, more ungrateful. He wished now—but morosely, not
+with any tenderness of regret—that he had sought some opportunity of
+saying a word of apology to her. And then Jack? He fancied he saw
+condemnation written on Jack’s face, and that he too, to whom, in the
+old days, he had confided his aspirations and resolves, was on the
+enemy’s side—was blaming him for being on bad terms with his church
+wardens and for having already come to blows with half the parish.
+
+It was not pleasant. But the more unpleasant things he had to face, the
+higher he would hold his head. He disengaged himself presently—the
+Hammonds had already preceded him—from the throng and bustle of the
+heated room, and went down the stairs alone. Outside it was already
+dark, and small rain was falling. The outlook was wretched, and yet in
+his present mood he found a tiny satisfaction in the respect with which
+the crowd of ragamuffins about the door fell back to give him passage.
+With it all, he was some one. He was rector of the town.
+
+At the Hammond’s door he found a carriage waiting in the rain. It was
+not one he knew, and as he laid down his umbrella he asked the servant
+whose it was.
+
+“It is Lord Dynmore’s, sir,” the man answered, in his low trained
+voice. “His lordship is in the drawing-room, sir.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+“LORD DYNMORE IS HERE.”
+
+
+When Lord Dynmore, a few minutes before the rector found his carriage
+at the door, trotted at the heels of the servant into Mrs. Hammond’s
+drawing-room, his entrance, unexpected as it was, caused a flutter
+among those assembled there. Lords are still lords in the country, and
+in the case of his hostess the sensation was wholly one of pleasure.
+She was pleased to see him. She was still more pleased that he had
+chosen to call at so opportune a moment, when his light would not be
+hidden, and James had on his best waistcoat. Consequently she rose to
+meet him with a beaming smile, and a cordiality only chastened by the
+knowledge that Mrs. Homfray and the archdeacon’s wife were observing
+her with critical jealousy. “Why, Lord Dynmore,” she exclaimed, “this
+is most kind of you!”
+
+“How d’ye do? how d’ye do?” said the peer as he advanced. He was a
+slight, short man with bushy gray whiskers and grizzled hair which,
+being rather long, strayed over the fur collar of his overcoat. A noble
+aquiline nose and keen eyes helped to give him, despite his shortness,
+an air of being somebody. “How d’ye do? Why,” he continued, locking
+round, “you are quite _en fête_ here.”
+
+“We have been at a bazaar, Lord Dynmore,” Laura answered. She was
+rather a favorite with him and could “say things.” “I think you ought
+to have been there too, to patronize it. We did not know that you were
+in the country, but we sent you a card.”
+
+“Never heard a word of it!” replied his lordship positively.
+
+“But you must have had the card,” Laura persisted.
+
+“Never heard a word of it!” repeated his lordship, who had by this time
+shaken hands with everyone in the room. When the company was not too
+large he made a rule of doing this, thereby obviating the ill results
+of a bad memory, and earning considerable popularity. “Archdeacon, you
+are looking very well,” he continued.
+
+“I think I may say the same of you,” answered the clerical dignitary.
+“You have had good sport?”
+
+“Capital! capital!” replied the peer in his jerky way. “But it won’t
+last my time! In two years there will not be a head of buffalo in the
+States! By the way, I saw your nephew.”
+
+“My nephew!” echoed the archdeacon.
+
+“Yes. Had him up to dinner in Kansas city. A good fellow—a very good
+fellow. He put me up to one or two things worth knowing.”
+
+“But, Lord Dynmore, you must be thinking of some one else!” replied the
+archdeacon in a fretful tone. “It could not be my nephew: I have not a
+nephew out there.”
+
+“No?” replied the earl. “Then it must have been the dean’s. Or perhaps
+it was old Canon Frampton’s—I am not sure now. But he was a good
+fellow, an excellent fellow!” And my lord looked round and wagged his
+head knowingly.
+
+The archdeacon’s niece, a young lady who had not seen the peer before,
+nor indeed any peers, and who consequently was busy making a study of
+him, looked astonished. Not so the others who knew him and his ways. It
+was popularly believed that Lord Dynmore could keep two things, and two
+only, in his mind—the head of game he had killed in each and every year
+since he first carried a gun, and the amount of his annual income from
+the time of the property coming to him.
+
+“There have been changes in the parish since you were here last,” said
+Mrs. Hammond, deftly intervening. She saw that the archdeacon looked a
+little put out. “Poor Mr. Williams is gone.”
+
+“Ah! to be sure! to be sure!” replied the earl. “Poor old chap. He was
+a friend of my fathers’, and now you have a friend of mine in his
+place. From generation to generation, you know. I remember now,” he
+continued, tugging at his whiskers peevishly, “that I meant to see
+Lindo before I called here. I must look him up by-and-by.”
+
+“I hope he will save you the trouble,” Mrs. Hammond answered. “I am
+expecting him every minute.”
+
+“Capital! capital! He is a good fellow now, isn’t he? A really good
+fellow! I am sure you ought to be much obliged to me for sending you
+such a cheery soul, Mrs. Hammond. And he is not so very old,” the earl
+added waggishly. “Not too old, you know, Miss Hammond. Young for his
+years, at any rate.”
+
+Laura laughed and colored a little—what would offend in a commoner is
+in a peer pure drollery; and, as it happened, at this moment the rector
+came in. The news of the earl’s presence had kindled a spark of elation
+in his eye. He had not waited for the servant to announce him; and as
+he stood a second at the door, closing it, he confronted the company
+with an air of modest dignity which more than one remarked. His glance
+rested momentarily upon the figure of the earl, who was the only
+stranger in the room, so that he had no difficulty in identifying him;
+and he seemed in two minds whether he should address him. On second
+thoughts he laid aside the intention, and advanced to Mrs. Hammond. “I
+am afraid I scarcely deserve any tea,” he said pleasantly, “I am so
+late.”
+
+Laura, who had risen, touched his arm. “Lord Dynmore is here,” she said
+in a low voice, which was nevertheless distinctly heard by all. “I do
+not think you have seen him.”
+
+He took it as an informal introduction, and turned to Lord Dynmore, who
+was leaning against the fireplace, toying with his teacup and talking
+to Mrs. Homfray. The young rector advanced a step and held out his
+hand, a slight flush on his cheek. “There is no one whom I ought to be
+better pleased to see than yourself, Lord Dynmore,” he said with some
+feeling. “I have been looking forward for some time to this meeting.”
+
+“Ah, to be sure,” replied the peer, holding out his hand readily,
+though he was somewhat mystified by the other’s earnestness. “I am
+pleased to meet you, I am sure. Greatly pleased.”
+
+The listeners, who had heard what he had just said about his great
+friend, the rector, stared. Only the person to whom the words were
+addressed saw nothing odd in them. “You have not long returned to
+England, I think?” he answered.
+
+“No; came back last Saturday night. And how is the rector? Where is he?
+Why does he not show up? I understood Mrs. Hammond to say he was
+coming.”
+
+The archdeacon, Mrs. Hammond, and the others were dumb with
+astonishment. Even Lindo was surprised, thinking it very dull in the
+earl not to guess at once that he was the new incumbent. So no one
+answered, and the peer, glancing sharply round, discerned that every
+one was at a loss. “Eh! Oh, I see,” he resumed in a different tone.
+“You are not one of his curates? I made a mistake, I suppose. Took you
+for one of his curates, do you see? That was all. Beg your pardon. Beg
+your pardon, I am sure. But where is he?”
+
+“This _is_ the rector, Lord Dynmore,” said the archdeacon in an
+uncertain, puzzled way.
+
+“No, no, no, no,” replied the great man fretfully. “I mean the old
+rector—my old friend.”
+
+“He has forgotten that poor Mr. Williams is dead,” Laura murmured to
+her mother, amid the general pause of astonishment.
+
+He overheard her. “Nothing of the kind, young lady!” he answered
+irritably. “Nothing of the kind. Bless my soul, do you think I do not
+know whom I present to my own livings? My memory is not so bad as that!
+I thought this gentleman was Lindo’s curate, that was all. That was
+all.”
+
+They stared at one another in awkward silence. The rector was the first
+to speak. “I am afraid we are somehow at cross purposes still, Lord
+Dynmore,” he stammered, his manner constrained. “I am not my own
+curate—well, because I am myself Reginald Lindo, whom you were kind
+enough to present to this living.”
+
+“To Claversham, do you mean?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And do you say you are Reginald Lindo?” The peer grew very red in the
+face as he put this question.
+
+“Yes, certainly I am.”
+
+“Then, sir, I say that certainly you are not!” was the rapid and
+startling answer. “Certainly you are not! You are no more Reginald
+Lindo than I am!” the peer repeated, striking his hand upon the table
+by his side. “What do you mean by saying that you are, eh? What do you
+mean by it?”
+
+“Lord Dynmore——”
+
+But the peer would not listen. “Who are you, sir? Answer me that
+question first!” he cried. He was a choleric man, and he saw already
+that there was something seriously amiss; so that the shocked,
+astonished faces round him tended rather to increase than lessen his
+wrath. “Answer me that!”
+
+“I think, Lord Dynmore, that you must be mad,” replied the rector, his
+lips quivering. “I am as certainly Reginald Lindo as you are Lord
+Dynmore!”
+
+“But what are you doing here?” retorted the other, storming down the
+interruption which the archdeacon would have effected. “That is what I
+want to know. Who made you rector of Claversham?”
+
+“The bishop, my lord,” answered the young man sternly.
+
+“Ay, but on whose presentation?”
+
+“On yours.”
+
+“On mine?”
+
+“Most assuredly,” replied the clergyman doggedly—“as the archdeacon
+here, who indicted me, can bear witness.”
+
+“It is false!” Lord Dynmore almost screamed. He turned to the
+panic-stricken listeners, who had instinctively grouped themselves
+round the two, and appealed to them. “I presented a man nearly thrice
+his age, do you hear!—a man of sixty. As for this—this Reginald Lindo,
+I never heard of him in my life! Never! If he had letters of
+presentation, I did not give them to him.”
+
+The young clergyman’s eyes flashed, and his face grew hard as a stone.
+He guessed already the misfortune which had happened to him, and his
+heart was sore, as well as full of wrath. But in his pride he betrayed
+only the anger. “Lord Dynmore,” he said fiercely, “you will have to
+answer for these insinuations. If there has been any error, the fault
+has not lain with me!”
+
+“An error, you call it, do you? Let me——”
+
+“Oh, Lord Dynmore!” Mrs. Hammond gasped.
+
+“One moment, Lord Dynmore, if you please.” This from the archdeacon;
+and he pressed his interruption, placing himself between the two men,
+and almost laying his hands on the excited peer. “If there has been a
+mistake,” he urged, “a few words will make it clear. I fully
+believe—nay, I feel sure, that my friend here is not in fault, whoever
+is.”
+
+“Ask your questions,” grunted my lord, breathing hard, and eyeing the
+young clergyman as a terrier eyes the taller dog it means to attack.
+“He will not answer them, trust me!”
+
+“I think he will,” replied the archdeacon with decision. His _esprit de
+corps_ was rising. The earl’s rude insistance disgusted him. He
+remarked, his eyes wandering for a moment while he considered how he
+should frame his question, that another person, Mr. Clode, had silently
+entered the room, and was listening with a darkly thoughtful face. It
+occurred to the archdeacon to suggest that the ladies should withdraw,
+but then again it seemed fair that, as they had heard the charges, they
+should hear what answer the rector had to make; and he proceeded.
+“First, Lord Dynmore,” he said, “I must ask you whom you intended to
+present.”
+
+“My old friend, Reginald Lindo, of course.”
+
+“His address, please,” continued the archdeacon rather curtly.
+
+“Somewhere in the East End of London,” the earl answered. “Oh, I
+remember now, St. Gabriel’s, Aldgate.”
+
+The archdeacon turned silently to the clergyman. “He was my uncle,”
+Lindo explained gravely. “He died a year ago last October.”
+
+“Died!” The exclamation was Lord Dynmore’s.
+
+“Yes, died,” the young man retorted bitterly. “Your lordship keeps a
+watchful eye upon your friends!”
+
+The shaft went home. The earl caught a quick breath, and his face
+changed. The words awoke a slumbering chord in his memory and
+recalled—not as might have been expected, old days of frolic and sport
+spent with the friend whose death was thus coldly flung in his face—but
+a scene in another world. He saw upon the instant a rock-bound valley,
+inclosed by hills that rose in giant steps to the snowy line of the
+Andes; and in its depths a tiny hunter’s camp. He saw an Indian fishing
+in the brook, and near him a white man wandering away—a letter in his
+hand. Then had come a shot, an alarm, a hasty striking of the tent, and
+for many hours—even days—a rapid, dangerous march. In the excitement
+the letter had been forgotten, to be recalled with its tidings here—and
+now.
+
+He winced, and muttered, “Good heavens, and I had heard it.” The
+clergyman caught the words, and his resentment waxed hot. “My uncle’s
+death,” he continued grimly, in the tone of one rather making than
+answering an accusation, “occurred a year before the presentation was
+offered to me by your solicitors!”
+
+“Lord help us!” said the peer in a helpless, bewildered tone. “But are
+you a clergyman, sir?”
+
+“That is a fresh insult, Lord Dynmore!” he replied warmly.
+
+“Hoity-toity!” retorted my lord, recovering himself, “you are a fine
+man to talk of insults! And you in my living, without a shadow of title
+to it! You must have had some suspicion, sir, that all was not right.”
+
+“I think I can answer for Mr. Lindo, there!” interposed the curate,
+stepping forward for the first time. His face was deeply flushed, and
+he spoke hurriedly, not looking up; perhaps, because all eyes were on
+him. “When Mr. Lindo came here, I had reason to expect an older man. I
+heard by chance from him—I think it was on the evening of his
+arrival—that he had not long lost an uncle of the same name, and it
+occurred to me then as just possible that there might have been a
+mistake. But I particularly observed that he was perfectly free from
+any suspicion of that kind himself.”
+
+“Pooh! There is nothing in that!” replied the archdeacon snappishly.
+
+“I think there is!” cried the earl in triumph. “A great deal in it. If
+the idea occurred to a stranger, is it possible that the incumbent’s
+own mind could be free from it?”
+
+“Is it possible,” the rector answered viciously, a ring as of steel in
+his voice, “that a man who had had his dear friend’s death announced to
+him could forget the news in a year, and think of him as still alive?”
+
+The earl gasped with passion. By a tremendous effort he refrained from
+using bad words, and even forbore, in view of the alarmed looks of the
+ladies and the archdeacon’s hasty expostulation, to call his opponent,
+a villain or a scoundrel. He stammered only, “You—you—are you going to
+give up my living?”
+
+“No,” was the answer.
+
+“You are not?”
+
+“Certainly I am not!” the rector answered. “If you had treated me
+differently, Lord Dynmore,” he continued, speaking with his arms
+crossed and his lip curling with scorn and defiance, “my answer might
+have been different! Now, though the mistake has been with yourself or
+your people, you have accused me of fraud! You have treated me as an
+impostor! You have dared to ask me, though I have been ministering to
+the people in this parish for months, whether I am a clergyman! You
+have insulted me grossly, and, so doing, have put it out of my power to
+resign had I been so minded! And you may be sure I shall not resign.”
+
+He looked handsome enough as he flung down his defiance. But the earl
+cared nothing for his looks. “You will not?” he stuttered.
+
+“No! I acknowledge no authority whatever in you,” was the answer. “You
+are _functus officio_. I am subject to the bishop, and to him only.”
+
+“Give me my hat,” mumbled the peer, turning abruptly away; and, tugging
+up the collar of his fur coat, he began to grope about in a manner
+which at another time would have been laughable. “Give me my hat, some
+one,” he repeated. “Let me get out before I swear. I am _functus
+officio_, am I? I have never been so insulted in my life! Never, so
+help me heaven! Never! Let me get out!”
+
+His murmurs died away in the hall, Mr. Clode with much presence of mind
+opening the door for him and letting him out. When they ceased, in the
+room he had left there was absolute silence. The men avoided one
+another’s eyes. The women, their lips parted, looked each at her
+neighbor. Mrs. Homfray, the young wife of an old husband, was the first
+to speak. “Well, I never!” she sighed.
+
+That broke the spell. The rector, who had hitherto gazed darkly, with
+flushed brow and compressed lips, at the hearth-rug, roused himself. “I
+think I had better go,” he said, his tone hard and ungracious, “You
+will excuse me, I am sure, Mrs. Hammond. Good-night. Good-night.”
+
+The archdeacon took a step forward, with the intention of intercepting
+him, but thought better of it, and stopped, seeing that the time was
+not propitious. So, save to murmur an answer to his general farewell,
+no one spoke, and he left the room under the impression, though he
+himself had set the tone, that he stood alone among them; that he had
+not their sympathies. Afterward he remembered this, and it added to his
+unhappiness, and to the pride with which he endured it. But at the
+moment he was scarcely aware of the impression. The blow had fallen so
+swiftly, it was so unexpected and so crushing, that he went out into
+the darkness stunned and bewildered, conscious only, as are men whom
+some sudden accident has befallen, that in a moment all was changed
+with him.
+
+An hour later Mrs. Hammond and her daughter alone remained. The last of
+the visitors had departed, the dinner hour was long past, but they
+still sat on, fascinated by the topic, reproducing for one another’s
+benefit the extraordinary scene they had witnessed, and discussing its
+probable consequences. “I am sure, quite sure, poor fellow, that he
+knew nothing about it,” Mrs. Hammond declared for the twentieth time.
+
+“So the archdeacon seemed to think, mamma,” Laura answered. “And yet he
+said that probably Mr. Lindo would have to go.”
+
+“Because of the miserable attacks these people have made upon him!” her
+mother rejoined with indignation. “But think of the pity of it! Think
+of the income! And such a house as it is!”
+
+“It _is_ a nice house,” Laura assented, thoughtfully gazing into the
+fire, a slight access of color in her cheeks.
+
+“I think it is abominable!”
+
+“And then,” Laura said, continuing her chain of reflection, “there is
+the view from the drawing-room windows.”
+
+“Oh, it is too bad! It is really too bad! I declare I am quite upset, I
+am so sorry for him. Lord Dymnore ought to be ashamed of himself!”
+
+“Yes,” Laura assented rather absently, “I quite agree with you. And as
+for the hall, with a Persian rug or two it would be quite as good as
+another room.”
+
+“What hall? Oh, at the rectory?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Mrs. Hammond rose with a quick, pettish air of annoyance. “Upon my
+word, Laura,” she exclaimed, drawing a little shawl about her
+comfortable shoulders, “you seem to think more of the house than of the
+poor fellow himself! Let us go to dinner. It is half-past eight, and
+more.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+THE LAWYER AT HOME.
+
+
+If Mr. Clode, when he stepped forward to open the door for Lord
+Dynmore, had any thought beyond that of facilitating his departure—if,
+for instance, as is just possible, he had set his mind on having a
+little private talk with the peer—he was disappointed. Lord Dynmore,
+after what had happened, was in no mood for conversation. As, still
+muttering and mumbling, he seized his hat from the hall table, he did
+indeed notice his companion, but it was with the red angry glare of a
+bull about to charge. The next moment he plunged headlong into his
+brougham, and roared “Home.”
+
+The carriage plunged away into the darkness of the drive, as if it
+would reach the Park at a leap. But it had barely cleared Mrs.
+Hammond’s gates, and was still rattling over the stony pavement of the
+top of the town, when the footman heard his master lower the window and
+shout “Stop!” The horses were pulled up as suddenly as they had been
+started, and the man got down and went to the door. “Do you know where
+Mr. Bonamy the lawyer’s offices are?” Lord Dynmore said curtly.
+
+“Yes, my lord.”
+
+“Then drive there!”
+
+The footman got upon the box again. “What has bitten him now, I
+wonder?” he grumbled to his companion as he passed on the order. “He is
+in a fine tantrum in there!”
+
+“Who cares?” retorted the coachman, with a coachman’s fine
+independence. “If old Bonamy is in, there will be a pair of them!”
+
+Mr. Bonamy was in. In that particular Lord Dynmore had better luck than
+he perhaps deserved. Late as it was for business—it was after seven—the
+gas was still burning in the lawyer’s offices, illuminating the
+fanlight over the door and the windows of one of the rooms on the
+ground floor—the right-hand room. The servant jumped down and rapped,
+and his summons was answered almost immediately by Mr. Bonamy himself,
+who jerked open the door, and stood holding it ajar, with the air of a
+man interrupted in the middle of his work, and bent on sending the
+intruder off with a flea in his ear. Catching sight of the earl’s
+carriage, however, and the servant murmuring that my lord wished to see
+him on business, the lawyer stepped forward, his expression changing to
+one of extreme surprise.
+
+The Dynmore business had been hitherto monopolized by the London
+solicitors to the estate. In cases where a country agent had been
+necessary they had invariably employed a firm in Birmingham. Neither
+Mr. Bonamy nor the other Claversham lawyer had ever risen to the
+dignity of being concerned for Lord Dynmore, nor could Mr. Bonamy
+recall any occasion in the past on which the great man had crossed the
+threshold of his office.
+
+His appearance now, therefore, was almost as welcome as it was
+unexpected. Yet from some cause, probably the lateness of the hour,
+though that seems improbable, there was a visible embarrassment in the
+lawyer’s manner as he recognized him; and Mr. Bonamy only stepped aside
+to make way for him to enter upon hearing from his own lips that he
+desired to speak with him.
+
+Then he opened the door of the room on the left of the hall. “If your
+lordship will take a seat here,” he said, “I will be with you in a
+moment.”
+
+The room was in darkness, but he struck a match and lit the gas,
+placing a chair for Lord Dynmore, who, fretting and fuming and more
+than half inclined as he took it to walk out again, said sharply that
+he had only a minute to spare.
+
+“I shall not be a minute, my lord,” the lawyer answered. He retired at
+once with that, closing the door behind him, and went, as his visitor
+could hear, into the opposite room. Lord Dynmore looked round
+impatiently. He had not so high as opinion of his own importance as
+have some who are no peers. But he was choleric and accustomed to have
+his own way, and he thought that at least this local man whom he was
+going to patronize might receive him with more respect.
+
+Mr. Bonamy, however, was as good as his word. In less than a minute he
+was back. Closing the door carefully behind him, he sat down at the
+table. “I am entirely at your lordship’s service now,” he said, bowing
+slightly.
+
+The earl laid his hat on the table. “Very well,” he answered abruptly.
+“I have heard that you are a sharp fellow, Mr. Bonamy, and a good
+lawyer, and that is why I have come to you—that and the fact that my
+business will not wait and I have a mind to punish those confounded
+London people who have let me into this mess!”
+
+That it was rather impatience than anything else which had brought him
+he betrayed by getting up and striding across the room. Meanwhile the
+lawyer, golden visions of bulky settlements and interminable leases
+floating before his eyes, murmured his anxiety to be of service, and
+waited to hear more.
+
+“It is about that confounded sneak of a rector of yours!” my lord
+exclaimed, coming to a stand before the table.
+
+Mr. Bonamy started, his visions fading rapidly away. “What rector?” he
+replied, gazing at his client in great astonishment. “Our rector, my
+lord?”
+
+“The man who calls himself your rector!” the earl growled. “He is no
+more a rector than I am, and pretty fools you were to be taken in by
+him!”
+
+“Now that is odd!” the lawyer answered. He spoke absently, his eyes
+resting on the peer’s face as if his thoughts were far away.
+
+“Odd or not,” Lord Dynmore replied, stamping on the floor with
+undiminished irritation, “it is the fact, sir! And now if you will
+listen to me I will tell you what I want you to do.”
+
+The lawyer bowed slightly again, and the earl proceeded to tell his
+tale. Passing lightly over his own forgetfulness and negligence, he
+laid stress on all the facts which seemed to show that Lindo could not
+have accepted the living in good faith. He certainly made out a
+plausible case, but his animus in telling it was so apparent that, when
+he had finished and wound up by announcing his firm resolve to eject
+the young man from his cure, Mr. Bonamy only shook his head with a
+doubtful smile. “You will have to prove guilty knowledge on his part,
+my lord,” he said gravely.
+
+“So I will!” quoth the earl roundly.
+
+Mr. Bonamy seemed for a moment inclined to shake his head again, but he
+thought better of it. “Well, you may be right, my lord,” he answered.
+“At any rate—without going further into the matter at this moment, or
+considering what course your lordship, could or should adopt—I think I
+can do one thing. I can lay some information on this point before you
+at once.”
+
+“What! To show that he knew?” cried the earl eagerly.
+
+“Yes, I think so. But as to its weight——”
+
+“What is it? What is it? Let me hear it!” was the impatient
+interruption. The earl was on his feet in a moment. “Why, gadzooks, we
+may have him in a corner before the day is out, Mr. Bonamy,” he
+continued. “True? I will be bound it is true!”
+
+Mr. Bonamy looked as if he very much doubted that, but he offered no
+further opposition. Begging Lord Dynmore—who could not look upon him
+with sufficient admiration, so much was he struck with this strange
+preparedness—to excuse him for a moment, he left the room. He returned
+almost immediately, however, followed by a man whom the earl at once
+recognized, and recognized with the utmost astonishment. “Why, you
+confounded rascal!” he gasped. “What are you doing here?”
+
+It was Felton. Yet not the same Felton whose surreptitious visit to the
+rectory had been cut short by Mr. Clode. A few weeks of idleness and
+drinking, a month or two at the Bull and Staff had much changed the
+once sleek and respectable servant. Had he gone to the rectory for help
+now, his tale could not have passed muster even for a moment. His coat
+had come to hang loosely about him, and he wore no tie. His hands were
+dirty and tremulous, his eyes shifty and bloodshot. His pasty face had
+grown puffy and was stained with blotches which it was impossible to
+misinterpret. He had gone down the hill fast.
+
+Seeing his old master before him he began to whimper, but the lawyer
+cut him short. “This man, who says he was formerly your servant, has
+come to me with a strange story, Lord Dynmore,” he said.
+
+“Ten to one it’s a lie!” replied the peer, scowling darkly at the poor
+wretch.
+
+“So I think likely!” Mr. Bonamy rejoined with the utmost dryness.
+“However, what he says is this: that when he landed in England without
+a character he considered what he should do, and, remembering that he
+had heard you say that Mr. Lindo the elder, whom he knew, had been
+appointed to this living, he came down here to see what he could get
+out of him.”
+
+“That is likely enough!” cried the peer scornfully.
+
+“When he called at the rectory, however, he found Mr. Lindo, the
+younger, in possession. He had an interview with him, and he states
+that Mr. Lindo, to purchase his silence, undertook to pay him ten
+shillings a week until your return.”
+
+“Phaugh!” my lord exclaimed in astonishment.
+
+The servant mistook his astonishment for incredulity. “He did, my
+lord!” he cried passionately. “It is heaven’s own truth I am telling! I
+can bring half a dozen witnesses to prove it.”
+
+“You can?”
+
+“I can, my lord.”
+
+“Yes, but to prove what?” said the lawyer sharply.
+
+“That he paid me ten shillings a week down to last week, my lord.”
+
+“That will do! That will do!” cried the earl in great glee. “Set a
+thief to catch a thief—that is the plan!”
+
+Mr. Bonamy looked displeased. “I think you are a little premature, my
+lord,” he said with some sourness.
+
+“Premature? How?”
+
+“At present you have only this man’s word for what is on the face of it
+a very improbable story.”
+
+“Improbable? I do not see it,” replied the peer quickly, but with less
+heat. “He says that he has witnesses to prove that this fellow paid him
+the money. If that be so, explain the payment if you can. And, mark
+you, Mr. Bonamy, the allowance stopped last week—on my arrival, that
+is.”
+
+The man cried eagerly that that was so; the earl at once bidding him be
+silent for a confounded rascal as he was. Mr. Bonamy stood rubbing his
+chin thoughtfully and looking on the floor, but said nothing; so that
+the great man presently lost patience. “Don’t you agree with me?” he
+cried irascibly.
+
+“I think we had better get rid of our friend here before we discuss the
+matter, my lord,” the lawyer answered bluntly. “Do you hear, Felton?”
+he continued, turning to the servant. “You may go now. Come to me
+to-morrow morning at ten o’clock, and I will tell you what Lord Dynmore
+proposes to do.”
+
+The ex-valet would have demurred to being thus set aside, but the earl
+roaring “Go, you scoundrel!” in a voice he had been accustomed to obey,
+and Mr. Bonamy opening the door for him, he submitted and went. The
+streets were wet and gloomy, and he was more sober than he had been for
+a week. In other words, his nerves were shaky, and he soon began, as he
+slunk homeward, to torment himself with doubts. Had he made the best of
+his story? Might it not have been safer to make a last appeal to the
+rector? Above all, would Mr. Clode, whose game he did not understand,
+hold his hand, or play the trump by disclosing that little burglary we
+know of? Altogether Felton was not happy, and saw before him but one
+resource—to get home as quickly as possible and get drunk.
+
+Meanwhile the lawyer, left alone with his client, seemed as much averse
+as before to speaking out. Lord Dynmore had again to take the
+initiative. “Well, it is good enough, sir, is it not?” he said,
+frowning impatiently on his new adviser. “There is a clear case, I
+suppose!”
+
+“I think your lordship had better hear first,” Mr. Bonamy answered,
+“how your late servant came to bring his story to me.” He proceeded to
+explain the course which the young clergyman had pursued in the parish
+from the first, and the opposition and ill-will it had provoked. He
+told the story from his own point of view, but with more fairness than
+might have been expected, although, as was natural, when he came to the
+matter of the sheep-grazing and the writ he took care to make his own
+case good. The earl listened and chuckled, and at last interrupted him.
+
+“So you have been at him already?” he said, grinning.
+
+“Yes,” the lawyer answered slowly. “I may say, indeed, that I have been
+in constant opposition to him since his arrival. Felton (the man who
+has just left us) knew that, and it led him to bring his tale to me
+this evening.”
+
+“When he could get no more money out of the parson!” the earl replied
+with a sneer. “But, now, what is to be done, Mr. Bonamy?”
+
+Mr. Bonamy did not at once answer, but stood looking much disturbed.
+His doubt and uneasiness, in fact, visibly increased as the seconds
+flew by, and still Lord Dynmore’s gaze, bent on him at first in
+impatience and later in surprise, seemed to be striving to probe his
+thoughts. He looked down at the table and frowned, as if displeased by
+the scrutiny; and when he at length spoke, his voice was harsher than
+usual. “I do not think, my lord,” he said, “that I can answer that
+question.”
+
+“Do you want to take counsel’s opinion?”
+
+“No, my lord,” Mr. Bonamy answered curtly. “I mean something different.
+I do not think, in fact, that I can act for your lordship in this
+matter.”
+
+“Cannot act for me?” the earl gasped.
+
+“That is what I mean,” Mr. Bonamy answered doggedly, a slight flush as
+of shame on his sallow cheek. “I have explained, my lord, that I have
+been constantly opposed to this young man, but my opposition has been
+of a public nature and upon principle. I have no doubt that he and
+others consider me his chief enemy in the place, and to that I have no
+objection. But I am unwilling that he or others should think that
+private interest has had any part in my opposition, and therefore,
+being churchwarden, I would prefer, though I must necessarily offend
+your lordship, to decline undertaking the business.”
+
+“But why? Why?” cried the earl, between anger and astonishment.
+
+“I have tried to explain,” Mr. Bonamy rejoined with firmness. “I am
+afraid I cannot make my reasons clearer.”
+
+The earl swore softly and took up his hat. He really was at a loss to
+understand; principally because, knowing that Mr. Bonamy had risen from
+the ranks, he did not credit him with any fineness of feeling. He had
+heard only that he was a clever and rather sharp practitioner, and a
+man who might be trusted to make things unpleasant for the other side.
+So he took up his hat and swore softly. “You are aware,” he said,
+turning at the door and looking daggers at the solicitor, “that by
+taking this course you are throwing away a share of my work?”
+
+Mr. Bonamy, wearing a rather more gaunt and grim air than usual, simply
+bowed.
+
+“You will act for the other side, I suppose?” my lord snarled.
+
+“I shall not act professionally for any one, my lord!”
+
+“Then you are a damned quixotic fool—that is all I have to say!” was
+the earl’s parting shot. Having fired it, he flung out of the room and
+in great amaze roared for his carriage.
+
+A man is seldom so much inclined—on the surface, at any rate—to impute
+low motives to others as when he has just done something which he
+suspects to be foolish and quixotic. When Mr. Bonamy, a few minutes
+later, entered his rarely used drawing-room and discovered Jack and the
+two girls playing at Patience, he was in his most cynical mood. He
+stood for a moment on the hearth-rug, his coat-tails on his arms, and
+presently he said to Jack, “I am surprised to see you here.”
+
+Jack looked up. The girls looked up also. “I wonder you are not at the
+rectory,” Mr. Bonamy continued ironically, “advising your friend how to
+keep out of jail!”
+
+“What on earth do you mean, sir?” Jack exclaimed, laying down his cards
+and rising from the table. He saw that the lawyer had some news and was
+anxious to tell it.
+
+“I mean that he is in very considerable danger of going there!” was Mr.
+Bonamy’s answer. “There has been a scene at Mrs. Hammond’s this
+afternoon. By this time the story must be all over the town. Lord
+Dynmore turned up there and met him—denounced him as a scoundrel, and
+swore he had never presented him to the living.”
+
+For a brief moment no one spoke. Then Daintry found her voice. “My
+goody!” she exclaimed, her eyes like saucers. “Who told you, father?”
+
+“Never you mind, young lady!” Mr. Bonamy retorted with good-humored
+sharpness. “It is true. What is more, I am informed that Lord Dynmore
+has evidence that Mr. Lindo has been paying a man, who was aware of
+this, a certain sum every week to keep his mouth shut.”
+
+“My goody!” cried Daintry again. “I wonder, now, what he paid him! What
+do you think, Jack?” And she turned to Jack to learn what he was doing
+that he did not speak.
+
+Poor Jack! Why did he not speak? Why did he stand silent, gazing hard
+into the fire? Because he resented his friend’s coldness? Because he
+would not defend him? Because he thought him guilty? No, but because in
+the first moment of Mr. Bonamy’s disclosure he had looked into Kate’s
+face—his cousin’s face, who the moment before had been laughing over
+the cards at his side, in all things so near to him—and he had read in
+it, with the keen insight, the painful sympathy which love imparts, her
+secret. Poor Kate! No one else had seen her face fall or discovered her
+embarrassment. A few seconds later even her countenance had regained
+its ordinary calm composure, even the blood had gone back to her heart.
+But Jack had seen and read aright. He knew, and she knew that he knew.
+When at last—but not before Mr. Bonamy’s attention had been drawn to
+his silence—he turned and spoke, she avoided his eyes. “That is rather
+a wild tale, sir, is it not?” he said with an effort and a pale smile.
+
+If Mr. Bonamy had not been a man of great shrewdness, he would have
+been tempted to think that Jack had been in the secret all the time. As
+it was, he only answered, “I have reason to think that there is
+something in it, wild as it sounds. At any rate, the man in question
+has himself told the story to Lord Dynmore.”
+
+“The pensioner?”
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+“Well, I should like to ask him a few questions,” Jack answered
+drearily. But for the chill feeling at his heart, but for the knowledge
+he had just gained, he would have treated the matter very differently.
+He would have thought of his friend only—his feelings, his possible
+misery. He would not have condescended in this first moment to the
+evidence. But he could not feel for his friend. He could not even pity
+him. He needed all his pity for himself.
+
+“I do not answer for the story,” Mr. Bonamy continued. “But there is no
+doubt of one thing—that Mr. Lindo was appointed in error, whether he
+was aware of the mistake or not. I do not know,” the lawyer added
+thoughtfully, “that I shall pity him greatly. He has been very
+mischievous here. And he has held his head very high.”
+
+“He is the more likely to suffer now,” Jack answered almost cynically.
+
+“Possibly,” the lawyer replied. Then he added, “Daintry, fetch me my
+slippers, there is a good girl. Or, stay. Get me a candle and take them
+to my room.”
+
+He went out after her, leaving the cousins alone. Neither spoke. Jack
+stood near the corner of the mantel-shelf, gazing rigidly, almost
+sullenly, into the fire. What was Lindo to him? Why should he be sorry
+for him? A far worse thing had befallen himself. He tried to harden his
+heart, and to resolve that nothing of his suffering should be visible
+even to her. But he had scarcely formed the resolution when, his eyes
+wandering despite his will to the pale set face on the other side of
+the hearth, he sprang forward and, almost kneeling, took her hand in
+both his own. “Kate,” he whispered, “is it so? Is there no hope for me,
+then?”
+
+She, too, had been looking into the fire. She could feel for him now.
+She no longer thought his attentions “nonsense” as at the station a
+while back. But she could not speak. She could only shake her head, the
+tears in her eyes.
+
+Jack laid down the hand and rose and went back to the fire, and stood
+looking into it sorrowfully; but his thoughts were no longer wholly of
+himself. Brave heart, the rarest of gentlemen, though he was neither
+six feet high nor an Adonis, he had scarcely felt the weight of the
+blow which had fallen on himself, before he began to think what he
+could do to help her. Presently he put his thought into words. “Kate,”
+he said, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, “can I do anything?”
+
+She had made no attempt to deny the inference he had drawn. She seemed
+content, indeed, that he should have her secret, though the knowledge
+of it by another would have covered her with shame. But at the sound of
+his question she only shook her head with a sorrowful smile.
+
+It was all dark to him. He knew nothing of the past—only that the faint
+suspicion he had felt at the bazaar was justified, and that Kate had
+given away her heart. He did not dare to ask whether there was any
+understanding between her and his friend; and, not knowing that, what
+could he do? Nothing, he was afraid.
+
+Then a noble thought came into his head. “I am afraid,” he said slowly,
+looking at his watch, “that Lindo is in great trouble. I think I will
+go to him. It is not ten o’clock.”
+
+He tried not to look at her as he spoke, but all the same he saw the
+crimson tide rise slowly over cheek and brow, which his prayer had left
+so pure and pale. Her lip trembled and she rose hurriedly, muttering
+something inaudible. Poor Jack!
+
+For a moment self got the upper hand, and he stood still, frowning.
+Then he said gallantly, “Yes, I think I will go. Will you let my uncle
+know in case I should be late.”
+
+He did not look at her again, but hurried out of the room. It was a
+stiff, formal room, we know—a set, comfortless, middle-class room,
+which had given the rector quite a shock on his first introduction to
+it—but if it had grafted all the grace of the halls of Abencerrages
+upon the stately comfort of a sixteenth-century dining-hall it would
+have been no more than worthy of the man who quitted it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+A FRIEND IN NEED.
+
+
+I have heard that the bitterest pang a boy feels on returning to school
+after his first holidays is reserved for the moment when he opens his
+desk and recalls the happy hour, full of joyous anticipation, when he
+had closed that desk with a bang. Oh, the pity of it! The change from
+that boy to this, from that morning to this evening! How meanly, how
+inadequately—so it seems to the urchin standing with smudged cheeks
+before the well-remembered grammar—did the lad who turned the key
+estimate his real happiness! How little did he enter into it or deserve
+it!
+
+Just such a pang shot through the young rector’s heart as he passed
+into the rectory porch after that momentous scene at Mrs. Hammond’s.
+His rage had had time to die down. With reflection had come a full
+sense of his position. As he entered the house he remembered—remembered
+only too well, grinding his teeth over the recollection—how secure, how
+free from embarrassments, how happy had been his situation when he last
+issued from that door a few, a very few, hours before. Such troubles as
+had then annoyed him seemed trifles light as air now. Mr. Bonamy’s
+writ, the dislike of one section in the parish—how could he have let
+such things as these make him miserable for a moment?
+
+How, indeed? Or, if there were anything grave in his situation then,
+what was it now? He had held his head high; henceforward he would be a
+by-word in the parish, a man under a cloud. The position in which he
+had placed himself would still be his, perhaps, but only because he
+would cling to it to the last. Under no circumstances could it any
+longer be a source of pride to him. He had posed, will he, nill he, as
+the earl’s friend; he must submit in the future to be laughed at by the
+Greggs and avoided by the Homfrays. It seemed to him indeed that his
+future in Claversham could be only one long series of humiliations. He
+was a proud man, and as he thought of this he sprang from his chair and
+strode up and down the room, his cheeks flaming. Had there ever been
+such a fall before!
+
+Mrs. Baker, as yet ignorant of it all, though the news was by this time
+spreading through the town, brought him his dinner, and he ate
+something in the dining-room. Then he went back to the study and sat
+idle and listless before his writing-table. There was a number of
+“Punch” lying on it, and he took this up and read it through drearily,
+extracting a faint pleasure from its witticisms, but never for an
+instant forgetting the cloud of trouble brooding over him. Years
+afterward he could recall some of the jokes in that “Punch”—with a
+shudder. Presently he laid it down and began to think. And then, before
+his thoughts became quite insufferable, they were interrupted by the
+sound of a voice in the hall.
+
+He rose and stood with his back to the fire, and as he waited, his eyes
+on the door, his face grew hot, his brow defiant. He had little doubt
+that the visitor was Clode. He had expected the curate before, and even
+anticipated the relief of pouring his thoughts into a friendly ear.
+None the less, now the thing had come, he dreaded the first moment of
+meeting, scarcely knowing how to bear himself in these changed
+circumstances.
+
+It was not Clode, however, who entered, but Jack Smith. The rector
+started, and, uncertain whether the barrister had heard of the blow
+which had fallen on him or no, stepped forward awkwardly, and held out
+his hand in a constrained fashion. Jack, on his side, had his own
+reasons for being ill at ease with his friend. But the moment the men’s
+hands met they somehow closed on one another in the old hearty fashion,
+and the grip told the rector that the other knew all. “You have heard?”
+he muttered.
+
+“Mr. Bonamy told me,” the barrister answered. “I came across almost at
+once.”
+
+“You do not believe that I was aware of the earl’s mistake, then?”
+Lindo said, with a faint smile.
+
+“I should as soon believe that I knew of it myself!” Jack replied
+warmly. He was glad beyond measure now that he had come. As he and
+Lindo stood half facing one another, each with an elbow on the
+mantel-shelf, he felt that he could defy the chill at his own
+heart—that, notwithstanding all, his old friend was still dear to him.
+Perhaps if the rector had been prospering as before, if no cloud had
+arisen in his sky, it might have been different. But as it was, Jack’s
+generous heart went out to him. “Tell me what happened, old fellow,” he
+said cheerily—“that is, if you have no objection to taking me into your
+confidence.”
+
+“I shall be only too glad of your help,” Lindo answered thankfully,
+feeling indeed—so potent is a single word of sympathy—happier already.
+“I would ask you to sit down, Jack,” he continued, in a tone of rather
+sheepish raillery, “and have a cup of coffee or some whiskey, but I do
+not know whether I ought to do so, now that Lord Dynmore says the
+things are not mine.”
+
+“I will take the responsibility,” Jack answered, briskly ringing the
+bell. “Was my lord very rude?”
+
+“Confoundedly!” the rector answered, and proceeded to tell his story.
+Jack was surprised to find him at first more placable than he had
+expected, but presently he learned that this moderation was only
+assumed. The rector rose as he went on, and began to pace the room,
+and, the motion freeing his tongue, he gradually betrayed the
+indignation and resentment which he really felt. Jack asked him, with a
+view to clearing the ground, whether he had quite made up his mind not
+to resign, and was astonished by the force and anger with which he
+repudiated the thought of doing so. “Resign? No never!” he cried,
+standing still, and almost glaring at his companion. “Why should I?
+What have I done? Was it my mistake, that I am to suffer for it? Was it
+my fault, that for penalty I am to have the tenor of my life broken? Do
+you think I can go back to the Docks the same man I left them? I
+cannot. Nor is that all, or nearly all,” he added still more warmly—“I
+have been called a swindler and an impostor. Am I by resigning to plead
+guilty to the charge?”
+
+“No!” said Jack, himself catching fire, “certainly not! I did not
+intend for a moment to advise that course. I think you would be acting
+very foolishly if you resigned under these circumstances.”
+
+“I am glad of that,” the rector said, sitting down with a sigh of
+relief. “I feared you did not quite enter into my feelings.”
+
+“I do thoroughly,” the barrister answered, with feeling, “but I want to
+do more—I want to help you. You must not go into this business blindly,
+old man. And, first, I think you ought to take the archdeacon or some
+other clergyman into your confidence. Show him the whole of your case,
+I mean, and——”
+
+“And act upon his advice?” said the young rector, rebellion already
+flashing in his eye.
+
+“No, not necessarily,” the barrister answered, skilfully adapting his
+tone to the irritability of his patient. “Of course your _bona fides_
+at the time you accepted the living is the point of importance to you,
+Lindo. You did not see their solicitors—the earl’s people, I mean—did
+you?”
+
+“No,” the rector answered somewhat sullenly.
+
+“Then their letter conveyed to you all you knew of the living and the
+offer?”
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+“Let us see them, then,” replied Jack, rising briskly from his chair.
+He had already determined to say nothing of the witness whom Mr. Bonamy
+had mentioned to him as asserting that the rector had bribed him. He
+knew enough of his friend to utterly disbelieve the story, and he
+considered it as told to him in confidence. “There is no time like the
+present,” he continued. “You have kept the letters, of course?”
+
+“They are here,” Lindo answered, rising also, and unlocking as he spoke
+the little cupboard among the books; “I made them into a packet and
+indorsed them soon after I came. They have been here ever since.”
+
+He found them after a moment’s search and without himself examining
+them, pitched them to Jack, who had returned to his seat. The barrister
+untied the string and glancing quickly at the dates of the letters,
+arranged them in order and flattened them out on his knee. “Now,” he
+said, “number one! That I think I have seen before.” He mumbled over
+the opening sentences, and turned the page. “Hallo!” he exclaimed,
+holding the letter from him, and speaking in a tone of surprise—almost
+of consternation—“how is this?”
+
+“What?” said the rector.
+
+“You have destroyed the latter part of this letter! Why on earth did
+you do that?”
+
+“I never did,” Lindo answered incredulously. Obeying Jack’s gesture he
+came, and, standing by his chair, looked over his shoulder. Then he saw
+that part of the latter half of the sheet had been torn off. The
+signature and the last few words of the letter, were gone. He looked
+and wondered. “I never did it,” he said positively, “whoever did. You
+may be sure of that.”
+
+“You are certain?”
+
+“Absolutely certain,” the rector answered with considerable warmth. “I
+remember arranging and indorsing the packet. I am quite sure that this
+letter was intact then, for I read over every one. That was a few
+evenings after I came here.”
+
+“Have you ever shown the letters to any one?” Jack asked suspiciously.
+
+“Never,” said the rector; “they have never been removed from this
+cupboard, to my knowledge, since I put them there.”
+
+“Think! I want you to be quite sure,” Jack rejoined, pressing his point
+steadily; “you see this letter is rendered utterly worthless by the
+mutilation. Indeed, to produce it would be to raise a natural suspicion
+that the last sentence of the letter was not in our favor, and we had
+got rid of it. Of course the chances are that the earl’s solicitors
+have copies, but for the present that is not our business.”
+
+“Well,” said the rector somewhat absently—he had been rather thinking
+than listening—“I do remember now a circumstance which may account for
+this. A short time after I came a man broke into the house and
+ransacked this cupboard. Possibly he did it.”
+
+“A burglar, do you mean? Was he caught?” the barrister asked,
+figuratively pricking up his ears.
+
+“No—or, rather, I should say yes,” the rector answered. And then he
+explained that his curate, taking the man red-handed, had let him go,
+in the hope that, as it was his first offence, he would take warning
+and live honestly.
+
+“But who was the burglar?” Jack inquired. “You know, I suppose? Is he
+in the town now?”
+
+“Clode never told me his name,” Lindo answered. “The man made a point
+of that, and I did not press for it. I remember that Clode was somewhat
+ashamed of his clemency.”
+
+“He had need to be,” Jack snorted. “It sounds an extraordinary story.
+All the same, Lindo, I am not sure it has any connection with this.” He
+held the letter up before him as though drawing inspiration from it.
+“This letter, you see,” he went on presently, “being the first in date
+would be inside the packet. Why should a man who wanted perhaps a bit
+of paper for a spill or a pipe-light unfasten this packet and take the
+innermost letter? I do not believe it.”
+
+“But no one else save myself,” Lindo urged, “has had access to the
+letter. And there it is torn.”
+
+“Yes, here it is torn,” Jack admitted, gazing thoughtfully at it; “that
+is true.”
+
+For a few moments the two sat silent, Jack fingering the letter, Lindo
+with his eyes fixed gloomily on the fire. Suddenly the rector broke out
+without warning or preface. “What a fool I have been!” he exclaimed,
+his tone one of abrupt overwhelming conviction. “Good heavens, what a
+fool I have been!”
+
+His friend looked at him in surprise, and saw that his face was
+crimson. “Is it about the letter?” he asked, leaning forward, his tone
+sharp with professional impatience. “You do not mean to say, Lindo,
+that you really——”
+
+“No, no!” replied the young clergyman, ruthlessly interrupting him. “It
+has nothing to do with the letter.”
+
+He said no more, and Jack waited for further light, but none came, and
+the barrister reapplied his thoughts to the problem before him. He had
+only just hit upon a new idea, however, when he was again diverted by
+an interruption from Lindo. “Jack,” said the latter impressively, “I
+want you to give a message for me.”
+
+“Not a cartel to Lord Dynmore, I hope?” the barrister muttered.
+
+“No,” Lindo answered, getting up and poking the fire unnecessarily—what
+a quantity of embarrassment has been liberated before now by means of
+pokers—“no, I want you to give a message to your cousin—Miss Bonamy, I
+mean.” The rector paused, the poker still in his hand, and stole a
+sharp glance at his companion; but, reassured by the discovery that he
+was to all appearance buried in the letter, he continued: “Would you
+mind telling her that I am sorry I misjudged her a short time back—she
+will understand—and behaved, I feel, very ungratefully to her? She
+warned me that there was a rumor afloat that something was amiss with
+my title, and I am afraid I was very rude to her. I should like you to
+tell her, if you will, that I—that I am particularly ashamed of
+myself,” he added, with a gulp.
+
+He did not find the words easy of utterance—far from it; but the effort
+they cost him was slight and trivial compared with that which poor Jack
+found himself called upon to make. For a moment, indeed, he was silent,
+his heart rebelling against the task assigned to him. To carry his
+message to her! Then his nobler self answered to the call, and he
+spoke. His words, “Yes, I’ll tell her,” came, it is true, a little
+late, in a voice a trifle thick, and were uttered with a coldness which
+Lindo would have remarked had he not been agitated himself. But they
+came—at a price. The Victoria Cross for moral courage can seldom be
+gained by a single act of valor. Many a one has failed to gain it who
+had strength enough for the first blow. “Yes, I will tell her,” Jack
+repeated a few seconds later, folding up the letter and laying it on
+the table, but so contriving that his face was hidden from his friend.
+“To-morrow will do, I suppose?” he added, the faintest tinge of irony
+in his tone. He may be pardoned if he thought the apology he was asked
+to carry came a little late.
+
+“Oh, yes, to-morrow will do,” Lindo answered with a start; he had
+fallen into a reverie, but now roused himself. “I am afraid you are
+very tired, old fellow,” he continued, looking gratefully at his
+friend. “A friend in need is a friend indeed, you know. I cannot tell
+you”—with a sigh—“how very good I think it was of you to come to me.”
+
+“Nonsense!” Jack said briskly. “It was all in the day’s work. As it is,
+I have done nothing. And that reminds me,” he continued, facing his
+companion with a smile—“what of the trouble between my uncle and you?
+About the sheep, I mean. You have put it in some lawyer’s hands, have
+you not?”
+
+“Yes,” Lindo answered reluctantly.
+
+“Quite right, too,” said the barrister. “Who are they?”
+
+“Turner & Grey, of Birmingham.”
+
+“Well, I will write,” Jack answered, “if you will let me, and tell them
+to let the matter stand for the present. I think that will be the best
+course. Bonamy won’t object.”
+
+“But he has issued a writ,” the rector explained. A writ seemed to him
+a formidable engine. As well dally before the mouth of a cannon.
+
+But Jack knew better. The law’s delays were familiar to him. He was
+aware of many a pleasant little halting-place between writ and
+judgment. “Never mind about that,” he answered, with a confident laugh.
+“Shall I settle it for you? I shall know better, perhaps, what to say
+to them.”
+
+The rector assented gladly; adding: “Here is their address.” It was
+stuck in the corner of a picture hanging over the fireplace. He took it
+down as he spoke and gave it to Jack, who put it carelessly into his
+pocket, and, seizing his hat, said he must go at once—that it was close
+on twelve. The rector would have repeated his thanks; but Jack would
+not stop to hear them, and in a moment was gone.
+
+Reginald Lindo returned to the study after letting him out, and,
+dropping into the nearest chair, looked round with a sigh. Yet, the
+sigh notwithstanding, he was a hundredfold less unhappy now than he had
+been at dinner or while looking over that number of “Punch.” His
+friend’s visit had both cheered and softened him. His thoughts no
+longer dwelt on the earl’s injustice, the desertion of his friends, or
+the humiliations in store for him; but went back again to the warning
+Kate Bonamy had given him. Thence it was not unnatural that they should
+revert to the beginning of his acquaintance with her. He pictured her
+at Oxford, he saw her scolding Daintry in the stiff drawing-room, or
+coming to meet him in the Red Lane; and, the veil of local prejudice
+torn from his eyes by the events of the day, he began to discern that
+this girl, with all the drawbacks of her surroundings, was the fairest,
+bravest, and noblest girl he had met at Claversham, or, for aught he
+could remember, elsewhere. His eyes glistened. He was sure—so sure that
+he would have staked his life on the result—that for all the earls in
+England Kate Bonamy would not have deserted him!
+
+He had reached this point, and Jack had been gone some five minutes or
+more, when he was startled by a loud rap at the house door. He stood up
+and, wondering who it could be at this hour, took a candle and went
+into the hall. Setting the candlestick on a table, he opened the door,
+and there, to his astonishment, was Jack come back again!
+
+“Capital!” said the barrister, slipping in and shutting the door behind
+him, as though his return were not in the least degree extraordinary,
+“I thought it was you. Look here; there is one thing I forget to ask
+you, Lindo. Where did you get the address of those lawyers?”
+
+He asked the question so earnestly, and his face, now it could be seen
+by the strong light of the candle at his elbow, wore so curious an
+expression, that the rector was for a moment quite taken aback. “They
+are good people, are they not?” he said, wondering much.
+
+“Oh, yes, the firm is good enough,” Jack answered impatiently. “But who
+gave you their address?”
+
+“Clode,” the rector answered. “I went round to his lodgings and he
+wrote it down for me.”
+
+“At his lodgings?” cried the barrister.
+
+“To be sure.”
+
+“Ah! then look here,” Jack replied, laying his hand on Lindo’s sleeve
+and looking up at him with an air of peculiar seriousness—“just tell me
+once more, so that I may have no doubt about it: Are you sure that from
+the time you docketed those letters until now you have never removed
+them—from this house, I mean?”
+
+“Never!”
+
+“Never let them go out of the house?”
+
+“Never!” answered the rector firmly. “I am as certain of it as a man
+can be certain of anything.”
+
+“Thanks!” Jack cried. “All right. Good night.” And that was all; for,
+turning abruptly, in a twinkling he had the door open and was gone,
+leaving the rector to go to bed in such a state of mystification as
+made him almost forget his fallen fortunes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+THE DAY AFTER.
+
+
+Oddly enough, the rector’s first thought on rising next morning was of
+his curate. He had expected, as we have seen, that Clode would call
+before bedtime. Disappointed in this, he still felt so certain that the
+curate would hasten as soon as possible to offer his sympathy and
+assistance that after breakfast he repaired to his study for the
+express purpose of receiving him. To find one friend in need is good,
+but to find two is better. The young clergyman felt, as people in
+trouble of a certain kind do feel, that though he had told Jack all
+about it, it would be a relief to tell Stephen all about it also; the
+more as Jack, whom he had told, was his personal friend, while Clode
+was identified with the place and his unabated confidence and esteem—of
+retaining which the rector made no doubt—would go some way toward
+soothing the latter’s wounded pride.
+
+It was well, however, that Lindo, sitting down at his writing-table to
+await his visitor, found there some scattered notes upon which he could
+employ his thoughts, and which without any great concentration of mind
+he could form into a sermon. For otherwise his time would have been
+wasted. Ten o’clock came, and eleven, and half-past eleven; but no
+curate.
+
+Mr. Clode, in fact, was engaged elsewhere. About half-past ten he
+turned briskly into the drive leading to Mrs. Hammond’s house and
+walked up it at a good pace, with the step of a man who has news to
+tell, and is going to tell it. The morning was bright and sunny, the
+air crisp and fresh, yet not too cold. The gravel crunched pleasantly
+under his feet, while the hoar-frost melting on the dark green leaves
+of the laurels bordered his path with a million gems as brilliant as
+evanescent. Possibly the pleasure he took in these things, possibly
+some thought of his own, lent animation to the curate’s face and figure
+as he strode along. At any rate, Miss Hammond, meeting him suddenly at
+a turn in the approach, saw a change in him, and, reading the signs
+aright, blushed.
+
+“Well?” she said, smiling a question as she held out her hand. They had
+scarcely been alone together since the afternoon when the rector’s
+inopportune call had brought about an understanding between them.
+
+“Well?” he answered, retaining her hand. “What is it, Laura?”
+
+“I thought you were going to tell me,” she said, glancing up with shy
+assurance. The morning air was not fresher. She was so bright and
+piquant in her furs and with her dazzling complexion, that other eyes
+than her lover’s might have been pardoned for likening her to the frost
+drops on the laurels. At any rate, she sparkled as they did.
+
+He looked down at her, fond admiration in his eyes. Had he not come up
+on purpose to see her?
+
+“I think it is all right,” he said, in a slightly lower tone. “I think
+I may answer for it, Laura, that we shall not have much longer to
+wait.”
+
+She gazed at him, seeming for the moment startled and taken by
+surprise. “Have you heard of a living, then?” she murmured, her eyes
+wide, her breath coming and going.
+
+He nodded.
+
+“Where?” she asked, in the same low tone. “You do not mean—here!”
+
+He nodded again.
+
+“At Claversham!” she exclaimed. “Then will he have to go, really?”
+
+“I think he will,” Clode replied, a glow of triumph warming his dark
+face and kindling his eyes. “When Lord Dynmore left here yesterday he
+drove straight to Mr. Bonamy’s. You hardly believe it, do you? Well, it
+is true, for I had it from a sure source. And, that being so, I do not
+think Lindo will have much chance against such an alliance. It is not
+as if he had many friends here, or had got on well with the people.”
+
+“The poor people like him,” she urged.
+
+“Yes,” Clode answered sharply. “He has spent money among them. It was
+not his own, you see.”
+
+It was a brutal thing to say, and she cast a glance of gentle reproof
+at him. She did not remonstrate, however, but, slightly changing the
+subject, asked, “But even if Mr. Lindo goes, are you sure of the
+living?”
+
+“I think so,” he answered, smiling confidently down at her.
+
+She looked puzzled. “How do you know?” she asked. “Did Lord Dynmore
+promise it to you?”
+
+“No; I wish he had,” he answered. “All the same, I think I am fairly
+sure of it without the promise.” And then he related to her what the
+archdeacon had told him as to Lord Dynmore’s intention of presenting
+the curates in future. “Now do you see, Laura?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, I see,” she answered, looking down and absently poking a hole in
+the gravel with the point of her umbrella.
+
+“And you are content?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, looking up brightly from a little dream of the
+rectory as it should be, when feminine taste had transformed it with
+the aid of Persian rugs and old china and the hundred knickknacks which
+are half a woman’s life—“Yes, I am content, Mr. Clode.”
+
+“Say ‘Stephen.’”
+
+“I am quite content, Stephen,” she answered obediently, a bright blush
+for a moment mingling with her smile.
+
+He was about to make some warm rejoinder, when the sound of footsteps
+approaching from the house diverted his attention, and he looked up.
+The new-comer was Mrs. Hammond, also on her way into the town. She
+waved her hand to him. “Good morning,” she cried in her cheery
+voice—“you are just the person I wanted to see, Mr. Clode. This is good
+luck. Now, how is he?”
+
+“Who? Mrs. Hammond,” said the curate, quite taken by surprise.
+
+“Who?” she replied warmly, reproach in her tone. She was a kind-hearted
+woman, and the scene in her drawing-room had really cost her a few
+minutes’ sleep. “Why, Mr. Lindo, to be sure. Whom else should I mean? I
+suppose you went in last night at once and told him how much we all
+sympathized with him? Indeed, I hope you did not leave him until you
+saw him well to bed, for I am sure he was hardly fit to be left alone,
+poor fellow!”
+
+Mr. Clode stood silent, and looked troubled. Really, if it had occurred
+to him, he would have called to see Lindo. But it had not occurred to
+him, after what had happened—perhaps because he had been busied about
+things which “seemed worth while.” He regretted now, since Mrs. Hammond
+seemed to think it so much a matter of course, that he had not done so;
+the more as the omission compelled him to choose his side earlier than
+he need have done. However, it was too late now. So he shook his head.
+“I have not seen him, Mrs. Hammond,” he said gravely. “I have not been
+to the rectory.”
+
+“What! you have not seen him?” she cried in amazement.
+
+“No, I have not,” he answered, a slight tinge of hauteur in his manner.
+After all, he reflected that he would have found it painful to play
+another part before Laura after disclosing so much of his mind to her.
+“What is more, Mrs. Hammond,” he continued, “I am not anxious to see
+him; for, to tell you the truth, I fear that the meeting could only be
+a painful one.”
+
+“Why, you do not mean to say,” the lady answered in a low, awe-stricken
+voice, “that you think he knew anything about it, Mr. Clode?”
+
+“At any rate,” the curate replied firmly, “I cannot acquit him.”
+
+“Not acquit him!—Mr. Lindo!” she stammered.
+
+“No, I cannot,” Clode replied, striving to express in his voice and
+manner his extreme conscientiousness and the gloomy sense of
+responsibility under which he had arrived at his decision. “I cannot
+get out of my head,” he continued, “Lord Dynmore’s remark that, if the
+circumstances aroused suspicion in my mind, they could scarcely fail to
+apprise Mr. Lindo, who was more nearly concerned, of the truth, or
+something like the truth. Mind!” the curate added with a great show of
+candor, “I do not say, Mrs. Hammond, that Mr. Lindo knew. I only say I
+think he suspected.”
+
+“Well, _that_ is very good of you!” Mrs. Hammond exclaimed, displaying
+a spirit and a power of sarcasm he had not expected. “I dare say Mr.
+Lindo will be much obliged to you for _that!_ But, for my part, I think
+it is a distinction without a difference!”
+
+“Oh, no!” the curate protested hastily.
+
+“Well, I think it is, at any rate!” retorted the lady, very red in the
+face, and with all the bugles in her bonnet shaking. “However, everyone
+to his opinion. But that is not mine, and I am sorry it is yours. Why,
+you are his curate!” she added in a tone of indignant wonder, which
+brought the blood to Clode’s cheeks, and made him bite his lip in
+impotent anger. “You ought to be the last person to doubt him!”
+
+“Can I help it if I do?” he answered sullenly.
+
+“Mother,” said Laura quickly, intercepting the angry reply which was on
+Mrs. Hammond’s lips, “if Mr. Clode thinks in that way, can he be blamed
+for telling us? We are not the town. What he has told us he has told us
+in confidence.”
+
+“A confidence Mrs. Hammond has made me bitterly regret,” he rejoined,
+taking skilful advantage of her intervention.
+
+Mrs. Hammond grunted. She was still angry, but she felt herself
+baffled. “Well, I do not understand these things, perhaps,” she said.
+“But I do not agree with Mr. Clode, and I am not going to pretend to.”
+
+“I am sure he does not wish you to,” said Laura sweetly. “Only you did
+not quite understand, I think, that he was only giving us his private
+opinion. Of course he would not tell it to the town.”
+
+“Well, that makes a difference, of course,” Mrs. Hammond allowed. “But
+now, however, I will say good-morning! I shall go straight to the
+rectory now and inquire. Are you coming, Laura?”
+
+Laura thought it better to go and with a bright little nod, tripped off
+after her mother. Mr. Clode, thus deserted, walked slowly down the
+drive, wondering whether he had been premature in his revolt. He did
+not think so; and yet he wished he had not been so hasty—that he had
+not shown his hand quite so early. The truth was, he had been a little
+carried away by the events of the previous afternoon. But, even now,
+the more he thought of it, the more hopeless seemed the rector’s
+position. Openly denounced by his patron as an impostor, at war with
+his church-warden, disliked by a powerful section of the parish, one
+action already commenced against him and another threatened—what else
+could he do but resign? “He may say he will not to-day and to-morrow,”
+the curate thought, smiling darkly to himself, “but they will be too
+much for him the day after.”
+
+And whether Mr. Clode told this opinion of his in the town or not, it
+was certainly a very common one. Never had Claversham been treated to
+such a dish of gossip as this. On the evening of the bazaar, before the
+unsold goods had been cleared from the tables, the wildest rumors were
+already afloat in the town. The rector had been arrested; he had
+decamped; he was to be tried for fraud; he was not in holy orders at
+all; Mrs. Bedford would have to be married over again! With the morning
+these reports died away, and something like the truth came to be
+known—to the inexpressible satisfaction of Dr. Gregg and his like. The
+doctor was in and out of half the houses in the town that day.
+“Resign!” he would say with a shriek—“of course he will resign! And
+glad to escape so easily!” Dr. Gregg, indeed, was in his glory now. The
+parts were reversed. It was for him now to meet the rector with a
+patronizing nod; only, for some reason best known to himself, and
+perhaps connected with an essential distinction between the two men, he
+preferred to celebrate his triumph figuratively, and behind Lindo’s
+back.
+
+What was said, and how it was said, can well be imagined. When a man
+who for some cause has held his head a little above his neighbors
+stumbles and falls, we know what is likely to be said of him. And the
+young rector knew, and in his heart and in his study suffered horribly.
+All the afternoon of the day after the bazaar he walked the town with a
+smile on his face, ostensibly visiting in his district, really
+vindicating his pride and courage. He carried his head as high as ever,
+and the skirts of his long black coat fluttered as bravely as before.
+Dr. Gregg, who saw him from the reading-room window, gave it as his
+opinion that he did not know what shame meant. But at heart the young
+man was unutterably miserable. He knew that inquisitive eyes were upon
+his every gesture; that he was watched, jeered at, worst of all—pitied.
+He guessed, as the day wore on, drawing the inference from the curate’s
+avoidance of him, that even Clode had deserted him; and this, perhaps,
+almost as much as the resentment he harbored against Lord Dynmore,
+hardened him in his resolve not to resign or abate one tittle of his
+rights.
+
+He fancied he stood alone. But, of course, there were some who
+sympathized with him, and some who held their tongues and declined to
+commit themselves to any opinion. Among the latter Mr. Bonamy was
+conspicuous—to the intense disgust of Dr. Gregg, whose first
+expression, indeed, on hearing the news had been, “What nuts for
+Bonamy!” As a fact, however, the snappish little doctor had never found
+his friend so morose and unpleasant as when he tried to sound him on
+this subject. He espied him on the other side of the street, and rushed
+across, stuttering almost before he reached him, “Well? He will have to
+resign, won’t he?”
+
+“Who?” said Mr. Bonamy, standing still, and fixing his cold gray eyes
+on the excited little man. “Who will have to resign?”
+
+“Why, the rector, to be sure!” rejoined Gregg, feeling the check
+unpleasantly.
+
+“Will he?”
+
+“Well, I should say so,” urged the doctor, now quite taken aback, and
+gazing at the other with eyes of surprise. “But I suppose you know
+best, Bonamy.”
+
+“Then I am going to keep my knowledge to myself!” snarled the lawyer;
+and, rattling a handful of silver in his pocket, he stalked away, his
+hat on the back of his head, and his lank figure more ungainly than
+usual. He was in the worst of tempers; angry with Lord Dynmore and
+dissatisfied with himself—given to calling himself, half a dozen times
+in an hour, a quixotic fool for having thrown away the earl’s business
+for the sake of a scruple that was little more than a whim. It is all
+very well to have a queer rugged code of honor of one’s own, and to
+observe it; but when the observance sends away business—such business
+as brings with it the social considerations which men prize most highly
+when they most affect to despise it—why then a man is apt to take out
+his self-denial in ill-temper. Mr. Bonamy did so.
+
+Dr. Gregg went away calling the lawyer a bear and an ill-bred fellow
+who did not know his own friends. Alas! the same thing might have been
+said, and with greater justice, of the rector. The archdeacon sat an
+hour in his study, waiting patiently for him to return from his
+district, and after all got but a sorry reception. The elder man
+expressed, and expressed very warmly—he had come to do so—his full
+belief in Lindo’s honesty and good faith, and was greatly touched by
+the effect his words produced upon the young fellow, who had come into
+the room, after learning his visitor’s presence, with set lips and eyes
+of challenge, but had by-and-by to turn his back on his friend and look
+out of the window, while in a very low tone he murmured his thanks.
+But, alas! the archdeacon went farther, and let drop something about
+concession, and then the boat was over!
+
+“Concession!” said the young man, turning as on a pivot, with every
+hair of his whiskers bristling, and his voice clear enough now. “What
+kind of concession do you mean?”
+
+“Well,” said the archdeacon persuasively, “the earl is a choleric man—a
+most passionate man, I know; and, when excited, utterly foolish and
+wrong-headed. But in his cooler moments I do not know any one more just
+or, indeed, more generous. And I feel sure that if you could prevail on
+yourself to meet him half-way——”
+
+“By resigning?” snapped the rector, interrupting him point-blank with
+the question.
+
+“Oh, no, no,” said the archdeacon, “I do not mean that.”
+
+“Then in what way? How?”
+
+But as the archdeacon really meant by resigning, he could not answer
+the question, and the interview ended in Lindo roundly declaring, as he
+walked up and down the room, “I will not resign! Understand that,
+archdeacon! I will not resign! If Lord Dynmore can put me out, well and
+good—let him. If not, I stay. He may be just or generous,” continued
+the young man scornfully—“all I know is that he insulted me grossly,
+and as no gentleman would have insulted another.”
+
+“He is passionate, and was taken by surprise,” the archdeacon ventured
+to say. But Lindo would not listen; and his visitor had presently to
+go, fearing that he had done more harm than good by his mediation. As
+for the rector, he was severely scolded later in the evening by Jack
+Smith for having omitted to lay the letters offering him the living
+before the archdeacon, or to explain to him the precise circumstances
+under which he had accepted it.
+
+“But he said he did not doubt me,” the rector urged rather fractiously.
+
+“Pooh! that is not the point,” the barrister retorted. “Of course he
+does not. He knows you. But I want to put him in possession of such a
+case as he may lay before others who do not know you. Look here, you
+are acquainted with a man called Felton, are you not?”
+
+“Yes,” Lindo answered, with a slight start.
+
+“Well, perhaps you are not aware that he has been to Lord Dynmore—so
+the tale runs in the town, and I know it is true—and stated that you
+have been for weeks bribing him to keep the secret.”
+
+The rector sat motionless, staring at his friend. “I did not know it,”
+he said at last, quite quietly. He was becoming accustomed to surprises
+of this kind. “It is a wicked lie, of course.”
+
+“Of course,” Jack assented tossing one leg easily over the other, and
+thrusting his hands deep into his trousers’ pockets. “But what do you
+say to it?”
+
+“The man came to me,” Lindo answered steadily, “and told me that he was
+Lord Dynmore’s servant, and that, crossing from America, he had
+foolishly lost his money at play. He begged me to assist him until Lord
+Dynmore’s return, and I did so. Some ten days ago I discovered that he
+was leading a disreputable life, and I stopped the allowance.”
+
+“Thanks,” said Jack, nodding his head. “That is precisely what I
+thought. But the mischief of it is, you see, that the man’s tale may be
+true in his eyes. He may have believed that he was blackmailing you.
+And therefore, since we cannot absolutely refute his story, it is the
+more important that we should show as good a case as possible
+_aliunde_. Nor does it make any difference,” Jack continued drily,
+“that the man, after seeing Lord Dynmore last night, has taken himself
+quietly off this morning.”
+
+“What! Felton?” the rector exclaimed, coming suddenly upright.
+
+“Yes. There is no doubt he has absconded. Bonamy’s clerk has been after
+him all day, and has discovered that he begged half-a-crown from your
+curate, to whom he was seen speaking at the Top of the Town about ten
+this morning. Since that time he has not been seen.”
+
+“He may turn up yet,” said the rector.
+
+“I do not think he will,” the barrister replied, with a shrewd gleam in
+his eyes. “But you must not flatter yourself that his disappearance
+will do you any good. Of course some people will say that he was afraid
+to remain and support a false statement. But more, I fear, will lean to
+the opinion that he was got out of the way by some one—you, for
+instance.”
+
+“I see,” said Lindo slowly, after a long pause. “Then it is the more
+imperative that I should not dream of resigning.”
+
+“I think so,” said Jack.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+A SUDDEN CALL.
+
+
+“Kate,” said Daintry, looking up from a lesson book as her sister
+entered the dining-room a few mornings after the bazaar, “are you
+_never_ going to see old Peggy Jones again? I am sure that you have not
+been near her for a fortnight?”
+
+“I ought to go, I know,” Kate answered, pausing by the sideboard, with
+a big bunch of keys dangling from her fingers and an absent expression
+in her gray eyes. “I have not been for some time.”
+
+“I should think you had not!” quoth Daintry severely. “You have hardly
+been out of the house the last four days.”
+
+A faint color stole into the elder girl’s face, and, seeming suddenly
+to recollect what she wanted, she turned and began to search in the
+drawer behind her. She knew quite well that what Daintry said was
+true—that she had not been out for four days. Jack had delivered the
+rector’s message to her, and she had listened with downcast eyes and a
+grave composure—a composure so perfect that even the messenger who held
+the clue in his hand was almost deceived by it. All the same, it had
+made her very happy. The young rector appreciated at last the motive
+which had led her to give him that strange warning. He was grateful to
+her, and anxious to make her understand his gratitude. And while she
+dwelt on this with pleasure, she foresaw with a strange mingling of joy
+and fear, of anticipation and shrinking, that the first time she met
+him abroad he would strive to make it still more clear to her.
+
+So for four days, lest she should seem even to herself to be
+precipitating the meeting, she had refrained from going out. Now, when
+Daintry remarked upon the change in her habits, she blushed at the
+thought that she might all the time have been exaggerating a trifle;
+and, though she did not go out at once, in the course of the afternoon
+she did issue forth, and called upon old Peggy. Coming back she had to
+pass through the churchyard, and there, on the very spot where she had
+once forced herself to address him, she met the rector.
+
+She saw him while he was still some way off, and before he saw her, and
+she looked eagerly for any trace of the trouble of the last few days.
+It had not changed him, at any rate. It had rather accentuated him, she
+thought. He looked more boyish, more impetuous, more independent than
+ever, as he came swinging along, his blond head thrown back, his eyes
+roving this way and that, his long skirts flapping behind him. Of
+defeat or humiliation he betrayed not a trace; and the girl wondered,
+seeing him so calm and strong, if he had really sent her that
+message—which seemed to have come from a man hard pressed.
+
+A glance told her all this; and then he saw her, and, a flash of
+recognition sweeping across his face, quickened his steps to meet her.
+He seemed to be shaking hands with her before he had well considered
+what he would say, for when he had gone through that ceremony, and said
+“Good morning.” he stood awkwardly silent. Then he said hurriedly, “I
+have been waiting for some time to speak to you, Miss Bonamy.”
+
+“Indeed?” she said calmly. She wondered at her own self-control.
+
+“Yes,” he answered, his color rising. “And I could not have met you in
+a better place.”
+
+“Why?” she asked. As if she did not know! The simplest woman is an
+actress by nature.
+
+“Because,” he answered, “it is well that I should do penance where I
+sinned, Miss Bonamy,” he continued impetuously, yet in a low voice, and
+with his eyes on the ground. “I owe you a deep apology for my rude
+thanklessness when I met you here last. You were right and I was wrong;
+but if it had been the other way, still I ought not to have behaved to
+you as I did. I thought—that is—I——”
+
+He faltered and stopped. He meant that he had thought that she was
+playing into her father’s hands, but he could hardly tell her that. She
+understood, however, or guessed, and for the first time she blushed.
+“Pray, do not say any more about it,” she said hurriedly.
+
+“I did send you a message,” he answered.
+
+“Oh, yes, yes,” she replied, anxious only to put an end to his
+apologies.
+
+“Well,” he rejoined with a smile which did not completely veil his
+earnestness, “I do find it a little more pleasant to look farther back
+to our Oxford visit. But you are going this way. May I turn with you?”
+
+“I am only going home,” Kate answered coldly. He had been humble enough
+to her. He had said and looked all she had expected. But he was not at
+all the crushed, beaten man whom she had looked to meet. He was,
+outwardly at least, the same man who had once sought her society for a
+few weeks and had then slighted her and shunned her to consort with the
+Homfreys and their class. He had not said he was sorry for _that_.
+
+He read her tone aright, and he colored furiously, growing in a second
+a thousand times more confused than before. It was on the cards that he
+would accept the rebuff, and leave her in resentment. Indeed, that was
+his first impulse. But the consciousness, which the next moment filled
+his mind, that he had deserved this, and perhaps the charm of her gray
+eyes and proud downturned face, overcame him. “I will come a little way
+with you, if you will let me,” he said, turning and walking by her
+side.
+
+Kate’s heart gave a great leap. She understood both the first thought
+and the second, the weaker impulse and the stronger one which mastered
+it, and she would not have been a woman had she not felt her triumph.
+She hastened to find something to say, and could think only of the
+bazaar. She asked him if it had been a success.
+
+“The bazaar?” he said. “To tell you the truth, I am afraid I hardly
+know. I should say so, now you ask me, but I have not given much
+thought to it since. I have been too fully occupied with other things,”
+he added, a note of bitterness in his voice. “Ah! Miss Bonamy,” with a
+fresh change of tone, “what a good fellow your cousin is!”
+
+“Yes, he is indeed!” she answered heartily.
+
+“I cannot tell you,” he continued, “what generous help and support he
+has given me during the last few days. He has been the greatest
+possible comfort to me.”
+
+She looked up at him impulsively. “He is Daintry’s hero,” she said.
+
+“Yes,” he answered laughing, “I remember that her praise made me almost
+jealous of him. That was when I first knew you—when I was coming to
+Claversham, you remember, Miss Bonamy, full of pleasant anticipations
+and hopes. The reality has been different. Jack has told you, of
+course, of Lord Dynmore’s strange attack upon me? But perhaps,” he
+added, checking himself, and glancing at her, “I ought not to speak to
+you about it, as your father is acting for him.”
+
+“I do not think he is,” she murmured, looking straight before her.
+
+“But—it is true the only communication I have had since has been from
+London—still I thought—I mean I was under the impression that Lord
+Dynmore had at once gone to your father.”
+
+“I think he saw him at the office,” Kate answered, “but I believe my
+father is not acting for him.”
+
+“Do you know why?” said the rector bluntly. “Why he is not, I mean?”
+
+“No,” she said—that and nothing more. She was too proud to defend her
+father, though he had let drop enough in the family circle to enable
+her to come to a conclusion, and she might with truth have made out a
+story which would have set the lawyer in a light differing much from
+that in which the rector was accustomed to view him.
+
+Reginald Lindo walked on considering the matter. Suddenly he said, “The
+archdeacon thinks I ought to resign. What do you think, Miss Bonamy?”
+
+Her heart began to beat quickly. He was seeking her advice!—asking her
+opinion in this matter so utterly important to him, so absolutely
+vital! For a moment she could not speak, she was so filled with
+surprise. Then she said gently, her eyes on the pavement, “I do not
+think I can judge.”
+
+“But you must have heard—more I dare say than I have!” he rejoined with
+a forced laugh. “Will you tell me what you think?”
+
+She looked before her, her face troubled. Then she spoke bravely.
+
+“I think you should judge for yourself,” she said in a low tone, full
+of serious feeling. “The responsibility is yours. I do not think that
+you should depend entirely on any one’s advice, but should try to do
+right according to your conscience—not acting hastily, but coolly, and
+on reflection.”
+
+They were almost at Mr. Bonamy’s door when she said this, and he
+traversed the remainder of the distance without speaking. At the steps
+he halted and held out his hand. “Thank you,” he said simply. “I hope I
+shall use this advice to better purpose than the last you gave me.
+Please remember me to your sister. Good-by.”
+
+She bowed silently and went in, and he turned back and walked up the
+street. The dusk was falling. A few yards in front of him the lame
+lamplighter was going his rounds, ladder on shoulder. In every other
+shop the gas was beginning to gleam. The night was coming, was almost
+come, yet still above the houses the sky, a pale greenish-blue, was
+bright with daylight, against which the great tower of the church stood
+up bulky and black. The young man was in a curious mood. Though he
+walked the common pavement, he felt himself, as he gazed upward, alone
+with his thoughts which went back, will he nill he, to his first
+evening in Claversham. He remembered how free from reproach or
+stumbling-blocks his path had seemed then, to what blameless ends he
+had in fancy devoted himself. What works of thanksgiving, small but
+beneficent as the tiny rills which steal downward through the ferns to
+the pasture, he had planned. And in the centre of that past dream of
+the future he pictured now—Kate Bonamy. Well, the reality had been
+different.
+
+He was just beginning to wonder when he would be likely to meet her
+again, and to dwell with curious pleasure on some of the details of her
+dress and appearance, when the sudden clatter of hoofs behind him
+caused him to turn his head. Far down the street a rider had just
+turned the corner, and was now galloping up the middle of the roadway,
+the manner in which he urged on his pony speaking loudly of disaster
+and ill news. Opposite the rector he pulled up and cried out, “Where is
+the doctor’s, sir?”
+
+Lindo turned sharply round and rang the bell of the house behind him,
+which happened to be Gregg’s.
+
+“Here,” he said briefly. “What is it, my man?”
+
+“An explosion in the Big Pit at Baerton,” the man replied, almost
+blubbering with excitement and the speed at which he had come. “There
+is like to be fifty killed and as many hurt, I was told. But I came
+straight off.”
+
+“When did it happen?” Lindo asked, a wave of wild excitement following
+his first impulse of horror.
+
+“About an hour and a quarter ago, as near as I can say,” the messenger,
+a farm laborer called from the plough, answered.
+
+Dr. Gregg was out, and the clergyman walked by the side of the horse, a
+crowd gathering behind him as the news spread, to the house of Mr.
+Keogh the other doctor, who fortunately lived close by. He was at home,
+and, the messenger going in to tell him the particulars, in five
+minutes his gig was at the door, The rector, who had gone in too, came
+out with him, and, without asking leave, climbed to the seat beside
+him.
+
+“Hallo!” said the surgeon, an elderly man, stout and white-haired, “are
+you coming, too, Mr. Lindo?”
+
+“I think,” the rector answered, “that there may be cases in which you
+can do little and I much. Mr. Walker, the vicar of Baerton, is ill in
+bed, I know; and as the news has come to me first, I think I ought to
+go.”
+
+“Right you are!” said Mr. Keogh gruffly. “Let go!”
+
+In another moment the fast trotting cob was whirling the two men down
+the street. They turned the corner sharply, and as the breeze met them
+on the bridge, compelling Lindo to turn up the collar of his coat and
+draw the rug more closely round him, the church clock in the town
+behind them struck the half-hour. “Half-past five,” said the rector.
+The surgeon did not answer. They were in the open country now, the
+hedges speeding swiftly by them in the light of the lamps, and the long
+outline of Bear Hill, a huge misshapen hump which rose into a point at
+one end, lying dim and black before them. A night drive is always
+impressive. In the gloom, in the sough of the wind, in the sky serenely
+star-lit, in a tumult of hurrying clouds, in the rattle of the wheels,
+in the monotonous fall of the hoofs, there is an appeal to the sombre
+side of a man. How much more when the sough of the wind seems to the
+imagination a cry of pain, and the night is a dark background on which
+the fancy paints dying faces! At such a time the cares of life, which
+day by day rise one beyond another and prevent us dwelling over-much on
+the end, sink into pettiness, leaving us face to face with weightier
+issues.
+
+“There have been accidents here before?” the clergyman asked, after a
+long silence.
+
+“Thirty-five years ago there was one!” his companion answered, with a
+groan which betrayed his apprehensions. “Good heavens, sir, I remember
+it now! I was young then and fresh from the hospitals; but it was
+almost too much for me!”
+
+“I hope that this one has been exaggerated,” Lindo replied, entering
+fully into the other’s feelings. “I did not quite understand the man’s
+account; but, as far as I could follow it, one of the two shafts—the
+downcast shaft I think it was—-was jammed full of rubbish and rendered
+quite useless.”
+
+“Just what I expected!” ejaculated his companion.
+
+“And they could now communicate with the workings only through the
+upcast shaft, in which they had rigged up some temporary lifting gear.”
+
+“Ay, and it is the deepest pit here,” the surgeon chimed in, as the
+horse began to breast the steeper part of the ascent, and the furnace
+fires, before and above them, began to flicker and glow, now sinking
+into darkness, now flaming up like beacon-fires. “The workings are two
+thousand feet below the surface, man!”
+
+“Stop!” Lindo said. “Here is some one looking for us, I think.”
+
+Two women with shawls over their heads came to the side of the gig. “Be
+you the doctors?” said one of them; and then in another minute the two
+were following her up the side of the cutting which here confined the
+road. The hillside gained, they were hurried round pit-banks and
+slag-heaps, and under cranes and ruinous sinking walls, and over and
+under mysterious obstacles, sometimes looming large in the gloom and
+sometimes lying unseen at their feet—until they emerged at length with
+startling abruptness into a large circle of dazzling light. Four great
+fires were burning close together, and round them, motionless and for
+the most part silent, in appearance almost apathetic, stood hundreds of
+dark shadows—men and women waiting for news.
+
+The silence and inaction of so large a crowd struck a chill to Lindo’s
+heart. When he recovered himself, he was standing in the midst of a
+dozen rough fellows, some half-stripped, some muffled up in
+pilot-jackets or coarse shiny clothes. The crowd seemed to be watching
+them, and they spoke now and then to one another in a desultory
+expectant fashion, from which he judged they were in authority.
+
+“It is a bad job—a very bad job!” his companion was saying nervously.
+“Is there anything I can do yet?”
+
+“Well, that depends, doctor,” answered one of the men, his manner of
+speaking proving that he was not a mere working collier. “There is no
+one up yet,” he added, eyeing the doctor dubiously. “But it does not
+exactly follow that you can do nothing. Some of us have just come up,
+and there is a shift of men exploring down there now. Three bodies have
+been recovered, and they are at the foot of the shaft; and three poor
+fellows have been found alive, of whom one has since died. The other
+two are within fifty yards of the shaft, and as comfortable as we can
+make them. But they are bad—too bad to come up in a bucket; and we can
+rig up nothing bigger at present so there they are fixed. The question
+is, will you go down to them?”
+
+Mr. Keogh’s face fell, and he shook his head. He was no longer young,
+and to descend a sheer depth of five hundred yards in a bucket dangling
+at the end of a makeshift rope was not in his line. “No, thank you,” he
+said, “I could not do it.”
+
+“Come, doctor,” the man persisted—he was the manager of a neighboring
+colliery—“you will be there in no time.”
+
+“Just so,” said the surgeon drily. “It is the coming back is the rub,
+you see, Mr. Peat. No, thank you, I could not.”
+
+The other still urged him. “These poor fellows are about as bad as they
+can be, and you know if the mountain will not go to Mahomet, Mahomet
+must go to the mountain.”
+
+“I know; and if it were a mountain, well and good,” Mr. Keogh answered,
+smiling in sickly fashion as his eye strayed to a black well-like hole
+close at hand—a mere hole in some loose planks surmounted by a windlass
+and fringed with ugly wreckage. “But it is not. It is quite the other
+thing, you see.”
+
+Mr. Peat, the manager, shrugged his shoulders, and glanced at his
+companions rather in sorrow than surprise. Lindo, standing behind the
+doctor, saw the look. Till then he had stood silent. Now he pressed
+forward. “Did I hear you say that one of the injured men died after he
+was found?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, that is so,” the manager answered, looking keenly at him, and
+wondering who he was.
+
+“The others that are hurt—are their lives in danger?”
+
+“I am afraid so,” the man replied.
+
+“Then I have a right to be with them,” the rector answered quickly. “I
+am a clergyman, and I have hastened here, fearing this might be the
+case. But I have also attended an ambulance class, and I can dress a
+burn. Besides, I am a younger man than our friend here, and, if you
+will let me down, I will go.”
+
+“By George, sir!” exclaimed the manager, looking round for approval and
+smiting his thigh heavily, “you are a man as well as a parson, and down
+you shall go, and thank you! You may make the men more comfortable, and
+any way you will put heart into them, for you have some to spare
+yourself. As for danger, there is none!—Jack!”—this in a louder voice
+to some one in the background—“just twitch that rope! And get that tub
+up, will you? Look slippery now.”
+
+Lindo felt a hand on his arm and, obeying the silent gesture of the
+nearest gaunt figure, stepped aside. In a twinkling the man stripped
+off the parson’s long coat and put on him the pilot jacket from his own
+shoulders; a second man gave Lindo a peaked cap of stiff leather in
+place of his soft hat and a third fastened a pit lamp round his neck,
+explaining to him how to raise the wick without unlocking the lamp, and
+also showing him that, if it hung too much on one side or were upset,
+its flame would expire of itself. And upon one thing Lindo was never
+tired of dwelling afterward—the kindly tact of these rough men, and how
+by seemingly casual words, and even touches, the roughest sought to
+encourage him, while ignoring the possibility of his feeling alarm.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Keogh, standing in a state of considerable perplexity and
+discomfiture where the rector had left him, heard a well-known voice at
+his elbow, and turned to find that Gregg had arrived. The younger
+doctor was not the man to be awed into silence, and, as he came up, was
+speaking loudly. “Hallo, Mr. Keogh!” he said. “Heard you were before
+me. Have you got them all in hand? Cuts or burns mostly, eh?”
+
+“They are not above ground yet,” Mr. Keogh answered. He and Gregg were
+not on speaking terms, but such an emergency as this was allowed to
+override their estrangement.
+
+“Oh, then we shall have to wait,” Gregg answered, looking round on the
+scene with a mixture of curiosity and professional _aplomb_. “I wish I
+had spared my horse. Any other medical man here?”
+
+“No; and they want one of us to go down in the bucket,” Keogh
+explained. “There are some injured men at the foot of the shaft. I have
+a wife and children, and I thought that perhaps you——”
+
+“Would not mind breaking my neck!” Gregg retorted with decision. “No,
+thank you, not for me I hope to have a wife and children some day, and
+I will keep my neck for them. Go down!” he repeated, looking round with
+extreme scorn. “Pooh! No one can expect us to do it! It is these
+people’s business, and they are used to it; but there is not a sane man
+in the kingdom, besides, would go down that place after what has just
+happened. It is a quarter of a mile as a stone falls, if it is an
+inch!”
+
+“It is all that,” assented the other, much relieved.
+
+“And a height makes me giddy,” Dr. Gregg added.
+
+“I feel the same now,” said his elder.
+
+“No; every man to his trade,” Gregg concluded, settling the matter to
+his satisfaction. “Let them bring them up, and we will doctor them. But
+while they are below ground—— Hallo!”
+
+His last word was an oath of surprise and anger. Happening to glance
+round, the doctor saw Lindo coming forward to the shaft, and recognized
+him in spite of his disguise. One look, and Gregg would cheerfully have
+given ten pounds either to have had the rector away, or to have arrived
+a little later himself. He had reckoned already in his own mind that,
+if no outsider went down, he could scarcely be blamed for taking care
+of himself. But, if the rector went down, the matter would wear a
+different aspect. And Dr. Gregg saw this so clearly that he turned pale
+with rage and chagrin, and swore more loudly than before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+IN PROFUNDIS.
+
+
+The young clergyman’s face, as he walked forward to the shaft, formed
+no index to his mind, for while it remained calm and even wore a faint
+smile, he was inwardly conscious of a strong desire to take hold of
+anything which presented itself, even a straw. He stepped gravely into
+the tub amid a low murmur, and, clutching the iron bar above it, felt
+himself at a word of command lifted gently into the air, and swung over
+the shaft. For an uncomfortable five seconds or so he remained
+stationary; then there was a jerk—another—and the dark figures, the
+lines of faces, and the glare of the fires leapt suddenly above his
+head. He found himself dropping through space with a swift, sickening
+motion, as of one falling away from himself. His heart rose into his
+throat. There was a loud buzzing in his ears, and yet above this he
+heard the dull rattling sound of the rope being paid out. Every other
+sense was spent in the stern clutch of his hands on the bar above his
+head.
+
+In a few seconds the horrible sensation of falling passed away. He was
+no longer in space with nothing stable about him, but in a small tub at
+the end of a tough rope. Except for a slight swaying motion, he hardly
+knew that he was still descending; and presently a faint light, more
+diffused than his own lamp, grew visible. Then he came gently to a
+standstill, and some one held up a lantern to his face. With difficulty
+he made out two huge figures standing beside him, who laid hold of his
+tub and pulled it toward them until it rested on something solid. “You
+are welcome,” growled one, as, aided by a hand of each, Lindo stepped
+out. “You will be the doctor, I suppose, master? Well, this way. Catch
+hold of my jacket.”
+
+Lindo obeyed, being only too glad of the help thus given him; for
+though the men seemed to move about with ease and certainty, he could
+make out nothing but shapeless gloom. “Now you sit right down there,”
+continued the collier, when they had moved a few yards, “and you will
+get the sight of your eyes in a bit.”
+
+He did as he was bid, and one by one the objects about him became
+visible. His first feeling was one of astonishment. He had put a
+quarter of a mile of solid earth between himself and the sunlight, and
+yet, for all he could see, he might be merely in a cellar under a
+street. He found himself seated on a rough bench, in a low-roofed,
+windowless, wooden cabin, strangely resembling a very dirty London
+office in a fog. True, everything was black—very black. On another
+bench, opposite him, sat the two colliers who had received him, their
+lamps between their knees. His first impulse was to tell them hurriedly
+that he was not the doctor. “I am afraid you must be disappointed,” he
+added, “but I hope one will follow me down. I am a clergyman, and I
+want to do something for those poor fellows, if you will take me to
+them.”
+
+The two men betrayed no surprise, but he who had spoken before quietly
+poked up the wick of his lamp and held the lantern up so as to get a
+good view of his face. “Ay, ay,” he said, nodding, as he lowered it
+again. “I thought you weren’t unbeknown to me. You are the parson we
+fetched to poor Lucas a while ago. Well, Jim will have a rare cageful
+of his friends with him to-night.”
+
+The rector shuddered. Such apathy, such matter-of-factness was new to
+him. But though his heart sank as the collier rose and, swinging his
+lamp in his hand, passed through the doorway, he made haste to follow
+him; and the man’s next words, “You had best look to your steps,
+master, for there is a deal of rubbish come down”—pointing as they did
+to a material danger—brought him, in the diversion of his thoughts,
+something like relief.
+
+The road on which he found himself, being the main heading or highway
+of the pit, was a good wide one. It was even possible to stand upright
+in it. Here and there, however, it was partially blocked by falls of
+coal caused by the explosion, and over one of these his guide put out
+his hand to assist him. Lindo’s lamp was by this time burning low. The
+pitman silently took it and raised the wick, a grim smile distorting
+his face as he handed it back. “You will be about the first of the
+gentry,” he muttered, “as has been down this pit without paying his
+footing.”
+
+Lindo took the words for a hint, and was shocked by the man’s
+insensibility. “My good fellow,” he answered, “if that is all, you
+shall have what you like another time. But for heaven’s sake let us
+think of these poor fellows now.”
+
+The man turned on him and swore furiously. “Do you think I meant that?”
+he cried, with another violent oath.
+
+The rector recoiled, not at the sound of the man’s profanity, but in
+disgust at his own mistake. Then he held out his hand. “My man,” he
+said, “I beg your pardon. It was I who was wrong.”
+
+The giant looked at him with another stare, but made no answer, and a
+dozen steps brought them to another cabin. Across the doorway—there was
+no door—hung a rough curtain of matting. This the man raised, and,
+holding his lamp over the threshold, invited the rector to look in. “I
+guess,” he added significantly, “that you would not have made that
+mistake, master, after seeing this.”
+
+Lindo peered in. On the floor, which was little more than six feet
+square, lay four quiet figures, motionless, and covered with coarse
+sacking. No human eye falling on them could have taken them for
+anything but what they were. The visitor shuddered, as his guide let
+the curtain fall again and muttered with a backward jerk of the head,
+“Two of them I came down with this morning—in the cage.”
+
+The rector had nothing to answer, and the man, preceding him to a cabin
+a few yards farther on, invited him by a sign to enter, and himself
+turned back the way they had come. A faint moaning warned Lindo, before
+he raised the matting, what he must expect to see. Instinctively, as he
+stepped in, his eyes sought the floor; and although three pitmen
+crouching upon one of the benches rose and made way for him, he hardly
+noticed them, so occupied was he with pitiful looking at the two men
+lying on coarse beds on the floor. They were bandaged and muffled
+almost out of human form. One of them was rolling his sightless face
+monotonously to and fro, pouring out an unceasing stream of delirious
+talk. The other, whose bright eyes met the newcomer’s with eager
+longing, paused in the murmur which seemed to ease his pain, and
+whispered, “Doctor!” so hopefully that the sound went straight to
+Lindo’s heart.
+
+To undeceive him, and to explain to the others that he was not the
+expected surgeon, was a bitter task with which to begin his
+ministrations; but he was greatly cheered to find that, even in their
+disappointment, they took his coming as a kindly thing, and eyed him
+with surprised gratitude. He told them the latest news from the
+bank—that a cage would be rigged up in a few hours at farthest—and
+then, conquering his physical shrinking, he knelt down by the least
+injured man and tried to turn his surgical knowledge to account. It was
+not much he could do, but it certainly eased the poor man’s present
+sufferings. A bandage was laid more smoothly here, a little cotton-wool
+readjusted there, a change of posture managed, a few hopeful words
+uttered which helped the patient to fight against the shock—so that
+presently he sank into a troubled sleep. Lindo tried to do his best for
+the other also, terrible as was the task; but the man’s excitement and
+unceasing restlessness, as well as his more serious injuries, made help
+here of little avail.
+
+When he rose, he found one of the watchers holding a cup of brandy
+ready for him; and, sitting down upon the bench behind, he discovered a
+coat laid there to make the seat more comfortable, though no one seemed
+to have done it, or to be conscious of his surprise. They talked low to
+him, and to one another, in a disjointed taciturn fashion, with immense
+gaps and long intervals of silence. He learned that there were
+twenty-seven men yet missing, but it was thought that the afterdamp had
+killed them all. Those already found alive had been in the main
+heading, where the current of air gave them a better chance.
+
+One or other of the workers was continually going out to listen for the
+return of the party who were exploring the workings near the foot of
+the other shaft; and once or twice a member of this party, exhausted or
+ill, looked in for a dose of tea or brandy, and then stumbled out again
+to get himself conveyed to the upper air. These looked curiously at the
+stranger, but, on some information being muttered in their ears, made a
+point on going out of giving him a nod which was full of tacit
+acknowledgment.
+
+In a quiet interval he looked at his watch and wound it up, finding the
+time to be half-past two. The familiar action carried his mind back to
+his neat, spotless bedroom at the rectory and the cares and anxieties
+of everyday life, which had been forgotten for the last five hours.
+Could it be so short a time, he asked himself, since he was troubled by
+them? It seemed years ago. It seemed as if a gulf, deep as the shaft
+down which he had come, divided him from them. And yet the moment his
+thoughts returned to them the gulf became less, and presently, although
+his eyes were still fixed upon the poor collier’s unquiet head and the
+murky cabin with its smoky lamp, he was really back in Claversham,
+busied with those thoughts again, and pondering on the time when he
+should be above ground. The things that had been important before rose
+into importance again, but their relative values among themselves were
+altered, in his eyes at any rate. With what he had seen and heard in
+the last few hours fresh in his mind, with the injured men lying still
+in his sight—one of them never to see the sun again—he could not but
+take a different, a wider, a less selfish view of life and its aims.
+His ideal of existence grew higher and purer, his notion of success
+more noble. In the light of his own self-forgetting energy and of
+others’ pain he saw things as they affected his neighbor rather than
+himself and so presently—not in haste, but slowly in the watches of the
+night—he formed a resolution which shall be told presently. The
+determinations to which men come at such times are, in nine cases out
+of ten, as transitory as the emotions on which they are based. But this
+time, and with this man, it was not to be so. Kate Bonamy’s words,
+bringing before his mind the responsibility which rested upon him, had
+in a degree prepared him to examine his position gravely and from a
+lofty standpoint; so that the considerations which now assailed him
+could scarcely fail to have due and lasting weight with him, and to
+leave impressions both deep and permanent.
+
+He was presently roused from his reverie by a sound which caused his
+companions to rise to their feet with the first signs of excitement
+they had betrayed in their manner. It was the murmur of voices in the
+heading, which, beginning far away, rapidly approached and gathered
+strength. Going to the door of the cabin, he saw lights in the gallery
+becoming each instant more clear. Then the forms of men coming on by
+twos and threes rose out of the darkness. And so the procession wound
+in, and Lindo found himself suddenly surrounded—where a moment before
+no sounds but painful ones had been heard—by the hum and bustle, the
+quick question and answers, of a crowd. For the men brought good news.
+The missing were found; and though many of them were burned or
+scorched, and others were suffering from the effects of the afterdamp,
+the explorers brought back with them no still, ominous burden, nor even
+any case of hopeless injury, such as that of the poor fellow in
+delirium over whom his mates bent with the strange impassive patience
+which seems to be a quality peculiar to those who get their living
+underground.
+
+Not that Lindo at the time had leisure to consider their behavior. The
+injured were brought to him as a matter of course, and he did what he
+could with simple bandages and liniment to keep the air from their
+wounds, and to enable the men to reach the surface with as little pain
+as possible. For more than an hour, as he passed from one to the other,
+his hands were never empty; he could think only of his work. The
+deputy-manager, who had been leading the rescue party, was thoroughly
+prostrated. The rest never doubted that the stranger was a surgeon, and
+it was curious to see their surprise when the general taciturnity
+allowed the news to spread that he was only a parson. They were like
+savants with a specimen which, known to belong to a particular species,
+has none of the class attributes, and sets at defiance all preconceived
+ideas upon the subject. He, too, when he was at length free to look
+about him, found matter for astonishment in his own sensations. The
+cabin and the roadway outside, where the men sat patiently waiting
+their turns to ascend, had become almost homelike in his eyes. The
+lounging figures here thrown into relief by a score of lamps, there
+lost in the gloom of the background, had grown familiar. He knew that
+this was here and that was there, and had his receptacles and
+conveniences, his special attendants and helpers. In a word, he had
+made the place his own, yet without forgetting old habits—for more than
+once he caught himself looking at his watch, and wondering when it
+would be day.
+
+Toward seven o’clock a message directed to him by name came down. A
+cage would be rigged up within the hour. Before that period elapsed,
+however, he was summoned to see the poor fellow die who had been
+delirious ever since he was found and who now passed away in the same
+state. It was a trying scene coming just when the clergyman’s
+wrought-up nerves were beginning to feel a reaction—the more trying as
+all looked to him to do anything that could be done. But that was
+nothing; and he felt gravely thankful when the poor man’s sufferings
+were over and the throng of swarthy faces melted from the open doorway.
+
+He sat apart a little after that until a commotion outside the cabin
+and a cheery voice asking for Mr. Lindo summoned him to the door, where
+he found the same manager who had sent him down the night before, and
+who now greeted him warmly. “It is not for me to thank you,” Mr. Peat
+said—“I have nothing to do with this pit—the owner, to whom what has
+happened will be reported, will do that; but personally I am obliged to
+you, Mr. Lindo, and I am sure the men are.”
+
+“I wanted only to be of help,” the clergyman answered simply. “There
+was not much I could do.”
+
+“Well, that is a matter of opinion,” the manager replied. “I have mine,
+and I know that the men who have come up have theirs. However, here is
+the cage; perhaps you will not mind going up with poor Edwards?”
+
+“Not at all,” said the rector; and, following the manager to the cage,
+he stepped into it without any suspicion that this was a trick on the
+part of Mr. Peat to insure his volunteer’s services being recognized.
+
+He found the ascent a very different thing from the descent. The steady
+upward motion was not unpleasant, and long before the surface was
+reached his eyes, accustomed to darkness, detected a pale gleam of
+light stealing downward, and could distinguish the damp brickwork
+gliding by. Presently the light grew stronger—grew dazzling in its
+wonderful whiteness. “We are going up nicely,” his companion murmured,
+remembering in his gratitude that the ascent, which was a trifle to him
+even with shattered nerves, might be unpleasant to the other—“we are
+nearly there.”
+
+And so they were; and slowly and gently they rose into the broad
+daylight and the sunshine which seemed to proclaim to the rector’s
+heart that sorrow may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
+
+Standing densely packed round the pit’s mouth was a great crowd—a
+crowd, at any rate, of many hundreds. They greeted the appearance of
+the cage with a quick drawing-in of the breath and a murmur of pity.
+Lindo’s face and hands were as black as any collier’s; his dress seemed
+at the first glance as theirs. But as he helped to lift his injured
+companion out and carry him to the stretcher which stood at hand, the
+word who he was ran round; and, though no one spoke, the loudest
+tribute could scarcely have been more eloquent than the respect with
+which the rough assemblage fell away to right and left that he might
+pass out to the trap which had been thoughtfully provided—first to
+carry him to the vicarage for a wash, and afterward to take him home.
+His heart was full as he walked down the lane, every man standing
+uncovered, and the women gazing on him with unspoken blessings in their
+eyes.
+
+A very few hours before he had felt at war with the world. He had said,
+not perhaps that all men were liars, but that they were unjust, full of
+prejudice and narrowness, and ill-will; that, above all, they judged
+without charity. Now, as the pony-cart rattled down the road through
+the cutting, and the sunny landscape, the winding river, and the plain
+round Claversham opened before him, he felt far otherwise. He longed to
+do more for others than he had done. He dwelt with wonder on the
+gratitude which services so slight had evoked from men so rough as
+those from whom he had just parted; and unconsciously he placed the
+balance in their favor to the general account of the world, and
+acknowledged himself its debtor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+THE RECTOR’S DECISION.
+
+
+The church clock was striking nine as the rector, jogging along behind
+the little pony, came in sight of the turnpike-house outside the town.
+He had no overcoat, and the drive had chilled him; and, anxious at once
+to warm himself and to reach the rectory as quietly as possible, he
+bade the driver stop at the gate and set him down. The lad had been
+strictly charged to see the parson home, and would have demurred, but
+Lindo persisted good-humoredly, and had his way. In two minutes he was
+striding briskly along the road, his shoulders squared, and the night’s
+reflections still running like a rich purple thread through the common
+stuff of his every-day thoughts.
+
+In this mood, which the pure morning air and crisp sunshine tended to
+favor and prolong, he came at a corner plump upon Mr. Bonamy, who, like
+all angular, uncomfortable men, was an early riser, and had this
+morning chosen to extend his before-breakfast walk in the direction of
+Baerton. The lawyer’s energy had already been rewarded. He had met Mr.
+Keogh, and learned not only the earlier details of the accident—which
+were, indeed, known to all Claversham, for the town had sat up into the
+small hours listening for wheels and discussing the catastrophe—but had
+further received a minute description of the rector’s conduct.
+Consequently his thoughts were already busy with the clergyman when,
+turning a corner, he came unexpectedly upon him.
+
+Lindo met his glance and looked away hastily. The rector had been
+anxious to avoid, by going home at once, any appearance of parading
+what he had done, and he would have passed on with a brief
+good-morning. But the lawyer seemed to be differently disposed. He
+stopped short in the middle of the path, so that the clergyman could
+not pass him without rudeness, and nodded a jerky greeting. “You have
+not walked all the way, I suppose, Mr. Lindo?” he said, his keen small
+eyes reading the other’s face like a book.
+
+“No,” the rector answered, coloring uncomfortably under his gaze. “I
+drove as far as the turnpike, Mr. Bonamy.”
+
+“Well, you may think yourself lucky to be well out of it,” the lawyer
+rejoined, with a dry smile. “To be here at all, indeed,” he continued,
+with a gesture of the hand which seemed meant to indicate the sunshine
+and the upper air. “When a man does a foolhardy thing he does not
+always escape, you know.”
+
+The younger man reddened. But this morning he had his temper well under
+control and he merely answered, “I thought I was called upon to do what
+I did, Mr. Bonamy. But of course that is a matter of opinion. Perhaps I
+was wrong, perhaps right. I did what I thought best at the moment, and
+I am satisfied.”
+
+Mr. Bonamy shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, well, every man to his notion,”
+he said. “I do not approve, myself, of people running risks which do
+not lie within the scope of their business. And as nothing has happened
+to you——”
+
+“The risk of anything happening,” the rector rejoined, with warmth,
+“was so small that the thing is not worth discussing, Mr. Bonamy. There
+is a matter, however,” he continued, changing the subject on a sudden
+impulse, “which I think I may as well mention to you now as later. You,
+as churchwarden, have in fact, a right to be informed of it. I——”
+
+“You are cold,” said Mr. Bonamy abruptly. “Allow me to turn with you.”
+
+The rector bowed and complied. The request, however, had checked the
+current of his speech, even the current of his thoughts, and he did not
+finish his sentence. He felt, indeed, for a moment a temptation as
+sudden as it was strong. He saw at a glance what his resolve meant. He
+discerned that what had appeared to him in the isolation of the night
+an act of dignified self-surrender must, and would, seem to others an
+acknowledgment of defeat—almost an acknowledgment of dishonor. He
+recalled, as in a flash, all the episodes of the struggle between
+himself and his companion. And he pictured the latter’s triumph. He
+wavered.
+
+But the events of the night had not been lost upon him, and, after a
+brief hesitation, he set the seal on his purpose. “You are aware, I
+know, Mr. Bonamy,” he said, “of the circumstances under which, in Lord
+Dynmore’s absence, I accepted the living here.”
+
+“Perfectly,” said the lawyer drily.
+
+“He has made those circumstances the subject of a grave charge against
+me,” the rector continued, a touch of hauteur in his tone. “That you
+have heard also, I know. Well, I desire to say once more that I
+repudiate that charge in the fullest and widest sense.”
+
+“So I understand,” Mr. Bonamy murmured. He walked along by his
+companion’s side, his face set and inscrutable. If he felt any surprise
+at the communication now being made to him he had the skill to hide it.
+
+“I repudiate it, you understand!” the clergyman repeated, stepping out
+more quickly in his excitement, and glaring angrily into vacancy. “It
+is a false and wicked charge! But it does not affect me. I do not care
+a jot for it. It does not in any sense force me to do what I am going
+to do. If that were all, I should not dream of resigning the living,
+but, on the contrary, would hold it, as a few days ago I had determined
+to hold it, in the face of all opposition. However,” he continued,
+lowering his tone, “I have now examined my position in regard to the
+parish rather than the patron, and I have come to a different
+conclusion, Mr. Bonamy—namely, to place my resignation in the proper
+hands as speedily as possible.”
+
+Mr. Bonamy nodded gently and silently. He did not speak, he did not
+even look at the clergyman; and this placid acquiescence irritated the
+young man into adding a word he had not intended to say. “I tell you
+this as my church-warden, Mr. Bonamy,” he continued stiffly, “and not
+as desiring or expecting any word of sympathy or regret from you. On
+the contrary,” he added, with some bitterness, “I am aware that my
+departure can be only a relief to you. We have been opposed to one
+another since my first day here.”
+
+“Very true,” said Mr. Bonamy. “I suppose you have considered——”
+
+“What?”
+
+“The effect which last night’s work may have on the relations between
+you and Lord Dynmore?”
+
+“I do not understand you,” the rector answered haughtily, and yet with
+some wonder. What did the man mean?
+
+“You know, I suppose,” Mr. Bonamy retorted, turning slightly so as to
+command a view of his companion’s face, “that he is the owner of the
+Big Pit at Baerton from which you have just come?”
+
+“Lord Dynmore is?”
+
+“To be sure.”
+
+A flush of crimson swept over the rector’s brow and left him red and
+frowning. “I did not know that!” he said, his teeth set together.
+
+“So I perceive,” the lawyer replied, with a nod. “But I can reassure
+you. It is not at all likely to affect the earl’s plans. He is an
+obstinate man, though in some points a good-natured one, and he will
+most certainly accept your resignation if you send it in. But here you
+are at home.” He paused, standing awkwardly by the clergyman’s side.
+Then he added, “It is a comfortable house. I do not think that there is
+a more comfortable house in Claversham.”
+
+He retired a few steps into the churchyard as he spoke, and stood
+looking up at the massive old-fashioned front of the rectory, as if he
+had never seen the house before. The clergyman, anxious to be indoors
+and alone, shot an impatient glance at him, and waited for him to go.
+But he did not go, and presently something in his intent gaze drew
+Lindo, too, into the churchyard, and the two ill-assorted companions
+looked up together at the old gray house. The early sun shone aslant on
+it, burnishing the half-open windows. In the porch a robin was hopping
+to and fro. “It is a comfortable, roomy house,” the lawyer repeated.
+
+“It is,” the rector answered slowly, as if the words were wrung from
+him. And he, too, stood looking up at it as if he were fascinated.
+
+“A man might grow old in it,” murmured Mr. Bonamy. There was a slight,
+but very unusual, flush on his parchment-colored face, and his eyes,
+when he turned with an abrupt movement to his companion, did not rise
+above the latter’s waistcoat. “Comfortably too, I should say,” he added
+querulously, rattling the money in his pockets. “I think if I were you
+I would reconsider my determination. I think I would, do you know? As
+it is, what you have told me will not go any farther. You did one
+foolish thing last night. I would not do another to-day, if I were you,
+Mr. Lindo.”
+
+And he turned abruptly away—his head down, his coat-tails swinging, and
+both his hands thrust deep into his trouser-pockets—such a shrewd,
+angular, ungainly figure as only a small country town can show. He left
+the rector standing before his rectory in a state of profound surprise
+and bewilderment. The young man felt something very like a lump in his
+throat as he turned to go in. He discerned that the lawyer had meant to
+do a kind, nay, a generous action; and yet if there was a man in the
+world whom he had judged incapable of such magnanimity it was Mr.
+Bonamy! He went in not only touched, but ashamed. Here, if he had not
+already persuaded himself that the world was less ill-conditioned than
+he had lately thought it, was another and a surprising lesson!
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Bonamy went home, and finding his family already at
+breakfast, sat down to the meal in a very snappish humor. The girls
+were quick to detect the cloud on his brow, and promptly supplied his
+wants, forbearing, whatever their curiosity, to make any present
+attempt to satisfy it. Jack was either less observant or more hardy. He
+remarked that Mr. Bonamy was late, and elicited only a grunt. A further
+statement that the morning was more like April than February gained no
+answer at all. Still undismayed, Jack tried again, plunging into the
+subject which the three had been discussing before the lawyer entered.
+“Did you hear anything of Lindo, sir?” he asked, buttering his toast.
+
+“I saw him,” the lawyer said curtly.
+
+“Was he all right?”
+
+“More right than he deserved to be!” Mr. Bonamy snarled. “What right
+had he down the pit at all? Gregg did not go.”
+
+“More shame to Gregg, I think!” Jack said.
+
+Mr. Bonamy prudently shifted his ground, and got back to the rector.
+“Well, all I can say is that a more foolish, reckless, useless piece of
+idiocy I never heard of in my life!” he declared in a tone of scorn.
+
+“I call it glorious!” said Daintry, looking dreamily across the table
+and slowly withdrawing an egg-spoon from her mouth. “I shall never say
+anything against him again.”
+
+Mr. Bonamy looked at her for an instant as if he would annihilate her.
+And then he went on with his breakfast.
+
+Apparently, however, the outburst had relieved him, for presently he
+began on his own account.
+
+“Has your friend any private means?” he asked, casting an ungracious
+glance at the barrister, and returning at once to his buttered toast.
+
+“Who? Lindo, do you mean?” Jack replied in surprise.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Something, I should say. Perhaps a hundred a year. Why?”
+
+“Because, if that is all he has,” the lawyer growled, buttering a fresh
+piece of toast and frowning at it savagely, “I think that you had
+better see him and prevent him making a fool of himself. That is all.”
+
+His tone meant more than his words expressed. Kate’s eyes sought Jack’s
+in alarm, only to be instantly averted. Though she had the urn before
+her, she turned red and white, and had to bury her face in her cup to
+hide her discomposure. Yet she need not have feared. Mr. Bonamy was
+otherwise engaged, and as for Jack, her embarrassment told him nothing
+of which he was not already aware. He knew that his service was and
+must be a thankless and barren service—that to him fell the empty part
+of the slave in the triumph. Had he not within the last few hours—when
+the news that the rector had descended the Big Pit to tend the wounded
+and comfort the dying first reached the town, and a dozen voices were
+loud in his praise—had he not seen Kate’s face now bright with triumph
+and now melting with tender anxiety. Had he not felt a bitter pang of
+jealousy as he listened to his friend’s praises? and had he not crushed
+down the feeling manfully, bravely, heroically, and spoken as loudly,
+ay, and as cordially after an instant’s effort, as the most fervent?
+
+Yes, he had done all this and suffered all this, being one of those who
+believe that
+
+
+Loyalty is still the same,
+Whether it win or lose the game:
+True as the dial to the sun,
+Although it be not shone upon.
+
+
+And he was not going to flinch now. He put no more questions to Mr.
+Bonamy, but, when breakfast was finished, he got up and went out. It
+needed not the covert glance which he shot at Kate as he disappeared,
+to assure her that he was going about her unspoken errand.
+
+Five minutes saw him face to face with the rector on the latter’s
+hearth-rug. Or, rather, to be accurate, five minutes saw him staring
+irate and astonished at his host while Lindo, with one foot on the
+fender and his eyes on the fire, seemed very willing to avoid his gaze.
+“You have made up your mind to resign!” Jack exclaimed, in accents
+almost awe-stricken. “You are joking!”
+
+But the rector, still looking down, shook his head. “No, Jack, I am
+not,” he said slowly. “I am in earnest.”
+
+“Then may I ask when you came to this extraordinary resolution?” the
+barrister retorted. “And why?”
+
+“Last night; and because—well, because I thought it right,” was the
+answer.
+
+“You thought it right?”
+
+Jack’s tone was a fine mixture of wonder, contempt, and offence. It
+made Lindo wince, but it did not shake his resolution. “Yes,” he said
+firmly. “That is so.”
+
+“And that is all you are going to tell me, is it? You put yourself in
+my hands a few days ago. You took my advice and acted upon it, and now,
+without a word of explanation, you throw me over! Good heavens! I have
+no patience with you!” Jack added, beginning to walk up and down the
+room. “Is not the position the same to-day as yesterday? Tell me that.”
+
+“Well,” the rector began, turning and speaking slowly, “the truth is——”
+
+“No!” cried the barrister, interrupting him ruthlessly. “Tell me this
+first. Is not the position the same to-day as yesterday?”
+
+“It is, but the view I take of it is different,” the young clergyman
+answered earnestly. “Let me explain, Jack. When I agreed with you a few
+days ago that the proper course for me to follow, the course which
+would most fitly assert my honesty and good faith, was to retain the
+living in spite of threats and opposition, I had my own interests and
+my own dignity chiefly in view. I looked upon the question as one
+solely between Lord Dynmore and myself; and I felt, rightly as I still
+think, that, as a man falsely accused by another man, I had a right to
+repel the charge by the only practical means in my power—by maintaining
+my position and defying him to do his worst.”
+
+He paused.
+
+“Well,” said Jack drily.
+
+But the rector did not continue at once, and when he did speak it was
+with evident effort. He first went back to the fire, and stood gazing
+into it in the old attitude, with his head slightly bowed and his foot
+on the fender. The posture was one of humility, and so unlike the man,
+that it struck Jack and touched him strangely. At last Lindo did
+continue. “Well,” he said slowly, “that was all right as far as it
+went. My mistake lay in taking too narrow a view. I thought only of
+myself and Lord Dynmore, when I should have been thinking of the parish
+and of—a word I know you are not very fond of—the Church. I should have
+remembered that with this accusation hanging over me I could not hope
+to do much good among my people; and that to many of them I should seem
+an interloper, a man clinging obstinately to something not his own nor
+fairly acquired. In a word, I ought to have remembered that for the
+future I should be useless for good and might, on the other hand,
+become a stumbling-block and occasion for scandal—both inside the
+parish and outside. You see what I mean, I am sure.”
+
+“I see,” quoth Jack contemptuously, “that you need a great many words
+to make out your case. What I do not think you have considered is the
+inference which will be drawn from your resignation—you will be taken
+to have confessed yourself in the wrong.”
+
+“I cannot help that.”
+
+“Will not that be a scandal?”
+
+“It will, at any rate, be one soon forgotten.”
+
+“Now, I tell you what!” Jack exclaimed, standing still and confronting
+the other with the air of a man bent on speaking his mind though the
+heavens should fall. “This is just a piece of absurd Quixotism, Lindo.
+You are a poor man, without means and without influence; and you are
+going, for the sake of a foolish idea—a mere speculative scruple—to
+give up an income and a house and a useful sphere of work such as you
+will never get again! You are going to do that, and go back—to what? To
+a miserable curacy—don’t wince, my friend, for that is what you are
+going to do—and an income one-fifth of that which you have been
+spending for the last six months! Now the sole question is, are you
+quite an idiot?”
+
+“You are pretty plain-spoken,” said the rector, smiling feebly.
+
+“I mean to be!” was Jack’s uncompromising retort. “I have asked you,
+and I want an answer—are you a fool?”
+
+“I hope not.”
+
+“Then you will give up this fool’s notion?” Jack replied viciously.
+
+But the rector’s only answer was a shake of the head. He did not look
+round. Had he done so, he would have seen that, though Jack’s keen face
+was flushed with anger and annoyance, his eyes were moist and wore an
+expression at variance with his tone.
+
+He missed that, however; and Jack made one more attempt. “Look here,”
+he said bluntly; “have you considered that if you stop you will find
+your path a good deal smoothed by last night’s work?”
+
+“No, I have not,” the rector answered stubbornly.
+
+“Well, you will find it so, you may be sure of that! Why, man alive!”
+Jack continued with vehemence, “you are going to be the hero of the
+place for the time. No one will believe anything against you, except,
+perhaps, Gregg and a few beasts of his kind. Whereas, if you go now, do
+you know who will get your berth?”
+
+“No.”
+
+Jack rapped out the name. “Clode! Clode, and no one else, I will be
+bound!” he said. “And you do not love him.”
+
+The rector had not expected the reply. He started, and, removing his
+foot from the fender, turned sharply so as to face his friend. “No,” he
+said slowly, “I do not think I do like him. I consider that he has
+behaved badly, Jack. He has not stood by me as he should have done, or
+as I would have stood by him had our positions been reversed. I do not
+think he has called here once since the bazaar, except on business, and
+then I was out. I had planned, indeed, to see him to-day and ask him
+what it meant, and, if I found he had come to an adverse opinion in my
+matter, to give him notice. But now——”
+
+“You will make him a present of the living instead,” Jack said grimly.
+
+“I do not know why he should get it,” the rector answered, with a
+frown, “more than any one else.”
+
+“It is the common report that he will,” Jack retorted. “As for that,
+however——”
+
+But why follow him through all the resources of his art? He put forth
+every effort—perhaps against his own better judgment, for a man will do
+for his friend what he will not do for himself—to persuade the rector
+to recall his decision. And he failed. He succeeded, indeed, in
+wringing the young clergyman’s heart and making him wince at the
+thought of his barren future and his curate’s triumph; but there his
+success ended. He made no progress toward inducing him to change his
+mind; and presently he found that all the arguments he advanced were
+met by a set formula, to which the rector seemed to cling as in
+self-defence.
+
+“It is no good, Jack,” he answered—and if he said it once, he said it
+half a dozen times—“it is no good! I cannot take any one’s advice on
+this subject. The responsibility is mine, and I cannot shift it! I must
+try to do right according to my own conscience!”
+
+Jack did not know that the words were Kate’s, and that every time the
+rector repeated them he had Kate in his mind. But he saw that they were
+unanswerable; and when he had listened to them for the sixth time he
+took up his hat in a huff. “Well, have our own way!” he said. “After
+all, you are right. It is your business and not mine. Give Clode the
+living if you like!”
+
+And he went out sharply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+THE CURATE HEARS THE NEWS.
+
+
+Seldom, if ever, had the curate passed a week so harassing as that
+which was ushered in by the bazaar, and was destined to end—though he
+did not know this—in the colliery accident. During these seven days he
+managed to run through a perfect gamut of feelings. He rose each day in
+a different mood. One day he was hopeful, confident, assured of
+success; the next fearful, despondent, inclined to give up all for
+lost. One day he went about telling himself that the rector would not
+resign; that he would not resign himself in his place; that people were
+mad to say he would; that men do not resign livings so easily; that the
+very circumstances of the case must compel the rector to stand his
+ground. The next he saw everything in a different light. He appreciated
+the impossibility of a man attacked on so many sides maintaining his
+position for any length of time. One hour he bitterly regretted that he
+had cut himself off from his chief, the next he congratulated himself
+as sincerely on being untrammelled by any but a formal bond. Why,
+people might even have expected him, had he strongly supported the
+rector, to refuse the living!
+
+He saw Laura several times during the week, but he did not open to her
+the extent of his hopes and fears. He shrank from doing so out of a
+natural prudent reticence; which after all meant only the refraining
+from putting into words things perfectly understood. To some extent he
+kept up between them the thin veil of appearances, which many who go
+through life in closest companionship, preserve to the end, though each
+has long ago found it transparent. But though he said nothing,
+confining the tumult of his feelings to his own breast, he was not
+blind, and he soon perceived that Laura shared his suspense, and was
+watching the rector’s fortunes with an interest as selfish and an eye
+as cold as his own. Which, far from displeasing him, rather increased
+his ardor.
+
+As the days passed by, however, bringing only the sickness of hope
+deferred and tidings of the rector’s sturdy determination to hold what
+he had got, the curate began, not in a mere passing mood, but, on
+grounds of reason and calculation, to lose hope. Every tongue in the
+town was wagging about Lindo. My lord was, or was supposed to be,
+setting the engines of the law in motion. Mr. Bonamy was believed,
+probably with less reason, to be contemplating an appeal to the bishop
+and the Court of Arches. In a word, all the misfortunes which Clode had
+foreseen were accumulating about the devoted head; and yet—and yet it
+was a question whether the owner of the head was a penny the worse!
+Perhaps some day he might be. The earl was a great man, with a long
+purse, and he might yet have his way. But this was not likely to
+happen, as the curate now began to see, until long after the Rev.
+Stephen Clode’s connection with the parish and claim upon the living
+should have become things of the past.
+
+On the top of this conviction, which sufficiently depressed him, came
+the news of the colliery accident—news which did not reach him until
+late at night. It plunged him into the depth’s of despair. He cursed
+the ill-luck which had withheld from him the opportunity of
+distinguishing himself, and had granted it to the rector. He saw how
+fatally the affair would strengthen the latter’s hands. And in effect
+he gave up. He resigned himself to despair. He had not the spirit to go
+out, but sat until long after noon, brooding miserably over the fire,
+his table littered with unremoved breakfast things, and his mind in a
+similar state of slovenly disorder. That was a day, a miserable day, he
+long remembered.
+
+About half-past two he made an effort to pull himself together.
+Mechanically putting a book in his pocket, he took his hat and went
+out, with the intention of paying two or three visits in his district.
+He had pride enough left to excite him to the effort, and sufficient
+sense to recognize its supreme importance. But, even so, before he
+reached the street he was dreaming again—the old dreary dreams. He
+started when a voice behind him said brusquely, “Going your rounds, I
+see! Well, there is nothing like sticking to business, whatever is on
+foot. Shall I have to congratulate you this time?”
+
+He knew the voice and turned round, a scowl on his dark face. The
+speaker was Gregg—Gregg wearing an air of unusual jauntiness and
+gaiety. It fell from him, however, as he met the other’s eyes, leaving
+him, metaphorically speaking, naked and ashamed. The doctor stood in
+wholesome dread of the curate’s sharp tongue and biting irony, nor
+would he have accosted him in so free-and-easy a manner now, had he not
+been a little lifted above himself by something he had just learned.
+
+“Congratulate me? What do you mean?” Clode replied, turning on him with
+the uncompromising directness which is more “upsetting” to a man
+uncertain of himself than any retort, however discourteous.
+
+“What do I mean?” the doctor answered, striving to cover his
+discomfiture with a feeble smile. “Well, no harm, at any rate, Clode. I
+hope I shall have to congratulate you. But if you are going to——”
+
+“On what?” interrupted the curate sternly. “On what are you going to
+congratulate me?”
+
+“Haven’t you heard the news?” Gregg said in surprise.
+
+“What news? Of the pit accident?” Clode answered, restraining with
+difficulty a terrible outburst of passion. “Why I should think there is
+not a fool within three counties has not heard it by this time!”
+
+He almost swore at the man, and was turning away, when something in the
+doctor’s “No, no!” struck him, excited as he was, as peculiar. “Then
+what is it?” he said, hanging on his heel, half curious and half in
+scorn.
+
+“You have not heard about the rector?”
+
+The curate glared. “About the rector?” he said in a mechanical way. A
+sudden stillness fell on his face and tone at mention of the name. “No,
+what of him?” he continued, after another pause.
+
+“You have not heard that he is resigning?” Gregg asked.
+
+The curate’s eyes flashed with returning anger. “No,” he said grimly.
+“Nor any one else out of Bedlam!”
+
+“But it is so! It is true, I tell you!” the doctor answered in the
+excitement of conviction. “I have just seen a man who had it from the
+archdeacon, who left the rectory not an hour ago. He is going to resign
+at once.”
+
+The curate did not again deny the truth of the story. But he seemed to
+Gregg, watching eagerly for some sign of appreciation, to take the news
+coolly, considering how important it was to him. He stood silent a
+moment, looking thoughtfully down the street, and then shrugged his
+shoulders. That was all. Gregg did not see the little pulse which began
+to beat so furiously and suddenly in his cheek, nor hear the buzzing
+which for a few seconds rendered him deaf to the shrill cries of the
+schoolboys playing among the pillars of the market hall.
+
+“Mr. Lindo has changed his mind since yesterday, then,” Clode said at
+last, speaking in his ordinary rather contemptuous tone.
+
+“Yes, I heard he was talking big then,” replied the doctor, delighted
+with his success. “Defying the earl, and all the rest of it. That was
+quite in his line. But I never heard that much came of his talking.
+However, you are bound to stick up for him, I suppose.”
+
+The curate frowned a little at that—why, the doctor did not
+understand—and then the two parted. Gregg went on his way to carry the
+news to others, and Clode, after standing a moment in thought, turned
+his steps toward the Town House. The sky had grown cloudy, the day cold
+and raw. The leafless avenue and silent shrubberies through which he
+strode presented but a wintry prospect to the common eye, but for him
+the air was full of sunshine and green leaves and the songs of birds.
+From despair to hope, from a prison to a palace, he had leapt at a
+single bound. In the first intoxication of confidence he could even
+spare a moment to regret that his hands were not _quite_ clean. He felt
+a passing remorse for the doing of one or two things, as needless, it
+now turned out, as they had been questionable. Nay, he could afford to
+shudder, with a luxurious sense of danger safely passed, at the risks
+he had been so foolish as to run; thanking Providence that his folly
+had not landed him, as he now saw that it easily might have landed him,
+in such trouble as would have effectually tripped up his rising
+fortunes.
+
+He reached the Town House in a perfect glow of moral worth and
+self-gratulation; and he was already half-way across the drawing-room
+before he perceived that it contained, besides Mrs. Hammond and her
+daughter, a third person. The third person was the rector. Except in
+church the two men had not met since the day of the bazaar, and both
+were unpleasantly surprised. Lindo rose slowly from a seat in one of
+the windows, and, without stepping forward, stood silently looking at
+his curate, as one requiring an explanation, not offering a greeting;
+while Clode felt something of a shock, for he discerned at once that
+the situation would admit of no half measures. In the presence of Mrs.
+Hammond, to whom he had expressed his view of the rector’s conduct, he
+could not adopt the cautious apologetic tone which he would probably
+have used had he met Lindo alone. He was fairly caught. But he was not
+a coward, and before the tell-tale flush had well mounted to his brow
+he had determined on his _rôle_.
+
+Half-way across the room he stopped, and looked at Mrs. Hammond. “I
+thought you were alone,” he said with an air of constraint, partly
+real, partly assumed.
+
+“There is only the rector here,” she answered bluntly. And then she
+added, with a little spice of malice, for Mr. Clode had not been a
+favorite with her since his defection, “I suppose you are not afraid to
+meet him?”
+
+“Certainly not,” the curate answered, thus challenged. And he turned
+haughtily to meet the rector’s angry gaze. “I am not aware that I have
+any need to be. I am glad to see that you are none the worse for your
+gallant conduct last night,” he added with perfect _aplomb_.
+
+“Thank you,” Lindo answered, choking down his indignation with an
+effort. For a week—for a whole week—this, his chosen lieutenant, had
+not been near him in his trouble! “I am much obliged to you,” he
+continued, “but I am rather surprised that your anxiety on my account
+did not lead you to come and see me at the rectory.”
+
+“I called, and failed to find you,” Clode answered, sitting resolutely
+down.
+
+Lindo followed his example. “I believe you did once,” he replied
+contemptuously. Had a friend been about to succeed him, he could have
+borne even to congratulate him. But the thought of this man entering on
+the enjoyment of all the good things he was resigning was well-nigh
+unendurable. Though he knew that it would best consort with his dignity
+to be silent, he could not refrain from pursuing the subject. “You
+thought,” he went on, the same gibe in his tone, “that a non-committal
+policy was best, I suppose?”
+
+The curate for a moment sat silent, his dark face glowing with
+resentment. “If you mean,” he said at last, neither Mrs. Hammond nor
+her daughter venturing to interfere—the former because she thought he
+was only getting his deserts, and the latter because she felt no call
+to champion him at present—“if you mean that I did not wish to publish
+my opinion, you are right, Mr. Lindo.”
+
+“I think you published it sufficiently for your purpose’” the young
+rector retorted with bitterness.
+
+“Then why throw my non-committal policy in my teeth?” replied the
+curate deftly. Thereby winning at least a logical victory.
+
+Lindo sneered and grew, of course, twice as angry as before. “Very
+neatly put!” he said. “I do not doubt that you would have got out of
+your confession of faith—or lack of faith—as cleverly, if circumstances
+had required it.”
+
+The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Miss Hammond rose in a
+marked way and left the room; while Clode for a moment glared at him as
+though he would resent the insult—for it was little less—in a practical
+manner. Fortunately the curate’s, calculating brain told him that
+nothing could be gained by this, and with an admirable show of patience
+and forbearance he waved the words aside. “I really do not understand
+you,” he said with a maddening air of superiority. “I cannot be blamed
+for having formed an opinion of my own on a subject which affected me.
+Then, having formed it, what was I to do? Publish it, or keep it to
+myself? As a fact, I did not publish it.”
+
+“Except by your acts,” said the rector.
+
+“Take it that way, then,” the curate replied, still with patience. “Do
+I gather that you would have had me, though I held an opinion adverse
+to you, come to you as before, be about you, treat you in all respects
+as if I were on your side? Is that your complaint? That I did not play
+the hypocrite?”
+
+The rector felt that he was fairly defeated and out-manœuvred; so much
+so that Mrs. Hammond, whose sympathies were entirely on his side,
+expected him to break into a furious passion. But the very skill and
+coolness of his adversary acted as a warning and an example, and by a
+mighty effort he controlled himself. He rose from his chair with
+outward calmness, and, saying contemptuously, “Well, I am glad that I
+know what your opinion is—an open foe is less dangerous than a secret
+one,” he turned from Clode. Holding out his hand to his hostess, he
+muttered some form of leave-taking, and walked out of the room with as
+much dignity as he could muster. He had certainly had the worst of the
+encounter.
+
+And he felt very bitter about it, as he crossed the top of the town.
+Whether the curate knew of his intention of resigning or not, his
+conduct in turning upon him and openly expressing his disbelief in his
+honesty was alike cruel and brutal. The man was false. The rector felt
+sure of it. But the pain which he experienced on this account—the pain
+of a generous man misunderstood and ill-requited—soon gave way to
+self-reproach. He had brought the thing on himself by his indiscreet
+passion. He had acted like a boy! He was not fit to be in a responsible
+position.
+
+While he was still full of this, chewing the cud of his imprudence, he
+saw a slender figure, which he recognized, crossing the street a little
+way before him. He knew it at the first glance. In a moment he
+recognized the graceful lines, the half-proud, half-gentle carriage of
+the head, the glint of the cold February sun in the fair hair. It was
+Kate Bonamy; and the rector, as he increased his pace, became
+conscious, with something like a shock, of the pleasure it gave him to
+see her, though he had parted from her not twenty-four hours before. In
+a moment he was at her side, and she, turning suddenly, saw him with a
+start of glad surprise. “Mr. Lindo!” she stammered, holding out her
+hand before he offered his, and uttering the first words which rose to
+her lips, “I am so glad!”
+
+She was thinking of the pit accident, of the risk and his safety, and
+perhaps a little of his good name. And he understood. But he affected
+not to do so. “Are you indeed, Miss Bonamy?” he answered. “Glad that I
+am going?”
+
+His eyes met hers, and then both his and hers fell. “No,” she said
+gently and slowly. “But I am very glad, Mr. Lindo, that you have done
+what seemed right to you without considering your own advantage.”
+
+“I have done a great deal since I saw you yesterday,” he answered,
+taking refuge in a jest.
+
+“You have, indeed.”
+
+“Including taking your advice.”
+
+“I am quite sure you had made up your mind before you asked my
+opinion,” she answered earnestly.
+
+“No,” he said, “I am sure I had not. It was your hint which led me to
+think the position out from the beginning. When I did so it struck me
+that, irritated by Lord Dynmore’s words and manner, I had considered
+the question only as it affected him and myself. Going on to think of
+the parish, I came to the conclusion, that I was quite unfit for the
+position.”
+
+Kate started. The end of his sentence was a surprise to her. They were
+walking along side by side now—very slowly—and she looked at him, mute
+interrogation in her eyes.
+
+“I am too young,” he said. “Your father, you know, was of that opinion
+from the first.”
+
+“Oh, but”—she answered hurriedly, “I——”
+
+“You do not think so?” he said with a droll glance. “Well, I am glad of
+that. What? You were not going to say that, Miss Bonamy?”
+
+“No,” she answered, blushing. “I was going to say that my father’s
+opinion might not now be the same, Mr. Lindo.”
+
+“I expect it is. However, the opinion on which I acted was my own. I
+have a very hasty temper, do you know. This very afternoon I have been
+quarrelling, and have put my foot into it! I confess I thought when I
+came here that I could manage. Now I see I am not fit for it—for the
+living, I mean.”
+
+“Perhaps,” she answered slowly and in a low voice, “you are the more
+fit because you feel unfit.”
+
+“Well, I do not think I dare act on that,” he cried gaily. “So you now
+see before you, Miss Bonamy, a very humble personage—a kind of clerical
+man-of-all-work out of place! You do not know an incumbent of easy
+temper who wants a curate, do you?”
+
+He spoke lightly, without any air of seeking or posing for admiration.
+Yet there was a little inflection of bitterness in his voice which did
+not escape her ear, and perhaps spoke to it—and to her heart—more
+loudly, because it was not intended for either. She suddenly looked at
+him, and her face quivered, and then she looked away. But he had seen
+and understood. He marked the color rising to the roots of her hair,
+and was as sure as if he had seen them that her eyes were wet with
+tears.
+
+And then he knew. He felt a sudden answering yearning toward her, a
+forgetfulness of all her surroundings, and of all his surroundings save
+herself alone. What a fool, what an ingrate, what a senseless clod he
+had been, not to have seen months before—when it was in his power to
+win her, when he might have asked for something besides her pity, when
+he had something to offer her—that she was the fairest, purest, noblest
+of women! Now, when it was too late, and he had sacrificed all to a
+stupid conventionality, a social prejudice—what was her father to her
+save the natural crabbed foil of her grace and beauty—now he felt that
+he would give all, only he had nothing to give, to see her wide gray
+eyes grow dark with tenderness, and—and love.
+
+Yes, love. That was it. He knew now. “Miss Bonamy,” he said hurriedly.
+“Will you——”
+
+Kate started. “Here is my cousin,” she said quietly, and yet with
+suspicious abruptness. “I think he is looking for me, Mr. Lindo.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+THE CUP AT THE LIP.
+
+
+The ten days which followed the events just described were long
+remembered in Claversham with fondness and regret. The accident at
+Baerton, and the strange position of affairs at the rectory, falling
+out together, created intense excitement in the town. The gossips had
+for once as much to talk about as the idlest could wish, and found,
+indeed, so much to say on the one side and the other that the grocer,
+it was rumored, ordered in a fresh supply of tea, and the two bakers
+worked double tides at making crumpets and Sally Lunns, and still
+lagged behind the demand. Old Peggy from the almshouse hung about the
+churchyard half the day, noting who called at the rector’s, and took as
+much interest in her task as if her weekly dole had depended on Mr.
+Lindo’s fortunes; while every one who could lay the least claim to
+knowing more than his neighbors became for the time the object of as
+many attentions as a London belle.
+
+The archdeacon drove in and out daily. Once the rumor got abroad that
+he had gone to see Lord Dynmore; and more than once it was said that he
+was away at the palace conferring with the bishop. Those most concerned
+walked the streets with the faces of sphinxes. The curate and the
+rector were known to be on the most distant terms; and to put an edge
+on curiosity, already keen, Mrs. Hammond was twice seen talking to Mr.
+Bonamy in the street.
+
+Even the poor colliers’ funeral, though a great number of the townsmen
+trooped out to the bleak little churchyard on Baer Hill to witness
+it—and to be rewarded by the sight of the young rector reading the
+service in the midst of a throng of bareheaded pitmen such as no
+Claversham eye had ever seen before—even this, which in ordinary times
+would have furnished food for talk for a month, at least, went for
+little now. It was discussed, indeed, for an evening, and then recalled
+only for the sake of the light which it was supposed to throw upon the
+rector’s fate.
+
+That gentleman, indeed, continued to present to the public an unmoved
+face. But in private, in the seclusion of his study—the lordly room
+which he had prized and appreciated from the first, taking its spacious
+dignity as the measure of his success—he wore no mask. There he had—as
+all men have, the man of destiny and the conscript alike—his solitary
+hours of courage and depression, anxiety and resignation. Of hope also;
+for even now—let us not paint him greater than he was—he clung to the
+possibility that Lord Dynmore, whom every one agreed in describing as
+irascible and hasty, but generous at bottom, would refuse to receive
+his resignation of the living, and this in such terms as would enable
+him to remain without sacrificing his self-respect. There would be a
+victory indeed, and at times he could not help dwelling on the thought
+of it.
+
+Consequently, when Mrs. Baker, four days after the funeral, ushered in
+the archdeacon, and the young rector, turning at his writing-table,
+read his fate in the old gentleman’s eyes, the news came upon him with
+crushing weight. Yet he did not give way. He rose and welcomed his
+visitor with a brave face. “So the bearer of the bow-string has come at
+last!” he said lightly, as the two met on the hearth-rug.
+
+The archdeacon held his hand a few seconds longer than was necessary.
+“Yes,” he said, “I am afraid that is about what I am. I am sorry to
+bring you such news, Lindo—more sorry than I can tell you.” And, having
+got so far, he dropped his hat and picked it up again in a great hurry,
+and for a moment did not look at his companion.
+
+“After all,” the rector said manfully, “it is the only news I had a
+right to expect.”
+
+“There is something in that,” the archdeacon admitted, sitting down.
+“That is so, perhaps. All the same,” he went on, looking about him
+unhappily, and rubbing his head in ill-concealed irritation, “if I had
+known how the earl would take it, I should not have advised you to make
+any concessions. No, I should not. But, there, he is an odd man—odder
+than I thought.”
+
+“He accepts my offer to resign, of course?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And that is all?” the rector said, a little huskiness in his tone.
+“That is all,” the archdeacon replied, rubbing his head again. It was
+plain that he had hard work to keep his vexation within bounds.
+
+“Well, I must not complain because he has taken me at my word,” the
+rector said, recovering himself a little.
+
+“Well, I hoped the bishop might have had a word to say to it,” the
+archdeacon grumbled. “But he had not, and I could not get to see his
+wife. He spoke very highly of your conduct, but he did not see his way
+clear, he said, to interfering.”
+
+“I scarcely see how he could,” Lindo answered slowly.
+
+“Well, I do not know. Bonamy’s representation in the church-wardens’
+names was very strong—very strong indeed, coming from them, you know.”
+
+Lindo reddened. “There is an odd man for you, if you like,” he said
+impulsively. He was glad, perhaps, to change the subject. “He has
+scarcely said a civil word to me since I came. He even began an action
+against me. Yet when this happened he turned round and in his way
+fought for me.”
+
+“Well, that is Bonamy all over!” the archdeacon answered, almost with
+enthusiasm. “He is rough and crabbed, but he has the instincts of a
+gentleman, which are the greater credit to him, since he is a self-made
+man. I think I can tell you something about him, though, which you do
+not know.”
+
+“Indeed?” said Lindo mechanically.
+
+“Yes. It has to do with your letter, too. I had it from Lord Dynmore.
+In the first flush of his anger, it seems, he went to Bonamy and
+directed him to take the necessary steps to eject you. He is not the
+earl’s solicitor, and he must have seen an excellent opportunity of
+getting hold of the Dynmore business through this. He could not but see
+it. Nevertheless, he declined.”
+
+“Why?” asked the rector shortly.
+
+The archdeacon shrugged his shoulders. “Ah! that I cannot say,” he
+answered. “I only know that he did, putting forward some scruple or
+other which sent the earl off almost foaming with rage; and, of course,
+sent off with him Bonamy’s chance of his business.”
+
+“He is a strange man!” Lindo sighed as he spoke.
+
+The archdeacon took a turn up the room. “Now,” he said, coming back, “I
+want to talk to you about another man.”
+
+“Clode?” muttered the rector.
+
+“Well, yes; you have guessed it,” the elder clergyman assented. “The
+truth is, I am to offer him the living if you report well of him.”
+
+“I do not like him,” Lindo said briefly.
+
+“To be candid,” replied the other as briefly, “neither do I, now.”
+
+To that Lindo for a moment said nothing. The young man had fallen into
+an old attitude, and stood with his foot on the fender, his head bent,
+his eyes fixed on the fire. He was passing through a temptation. Here
+was a brave vengeance ready to his hand. The man who had behaved badly,
+heartlessly, disloyally to him, who had taken part against him, and
+been hard and unfriendly from the moment of Lord Dynmore’s return, was
+now in his power. He had only to say that he distrusted Clode, that he
+suspected him of being unscrupulous, even that their connection had not
+been satisfactory to himself—and the thing was done. Clode would not
+have the living.
+
+Yet he hesitated to say those words. He felt that the thing was a
+temptation.
+
+He remembered that Clode had worked well in the parish, and that his
+only offence was a private one. And, not at once, but after a pause, he
+gulped down the temptation, and, looking up with a flushed face, spoke.
+“Yes,” he said, “I must report well of him—in the parish, that is. He
+is a good worker. I am bound to say as much as that, I think.”
+
+The archdeacon shrugged his shoulders once more. “Right!” he said, with
+a certain curtness which hid his secret disgust. “I suppose that is
+all, then. Will you come with me and tell him?”
+
+“No,” the rector answered very decidedly, “certainly I will not.”
+
+“It will look well,” the other still suggested.
+
+“No,” Lindo replied again, almost in anger, “I cannot sincerely
+congratulate the man, and I will not!”
+
+Nor would he budge from that resolve; and when the archdeacon called at
+the curate’s lodgings a few minutes later, he called alone. The man he
+sought was out, however. “Mr. Clode is at the Reading-Room, I think,
+sir,” the landlady said, with her deepest courtesy. And thither,
+accordingly, after a moment’s hesitation, the archdeacon went.
+
+The gas in the big, barely-furnished room, which we have visited more
+than once, had just been lit, but the blinds still remained up; and in
+this mingling of lights the place looked less home-like and more
+uncomfortable than usual. There were three people in the room when the
+archdeacon entered. Two sat reading by the fire, their backs to the
+door. The third—the future rector—was standing up near one of the
+windows, taking advantage of the last rays of daylight to read the
+_Times_, which he held open before him. The archdeacon cast a casual
+glance at the others, and then stepped across to him and touched him on
+the shoulder.
+
+Clode turned with a start. He had not heard the approaching footstep.
+One glance at the newcomer’s face, however, set his blood in a glow. It
+told him, or almost told him, all; and instinctively he dropped his
+eyes, that the other might not read in them his triumph and exultation.
+
+The archdeacon’s first words confirmed him in his hopes. “I have some
+good news for you, Mr. Clode,” he said, smiling benevolently. He had of
+late distrusted the curate, as we have seen; but he was a man of kindly
+nature, and such a man cannot convey good tidings without entering into
+the recipient’s feelings. “I saw Lord Dynmore yesterday,” he continued.
+
+“Indeed,” said the curate a little thickly. His face had grown hot, but
+the increasing darkness concealed this.
+
+“Yes,” the archdeacon resumed, in a confidential tone which was yet
+pretty audible through the room. “You have heard, no doubt, that Mr.
+Lindo has resigned the living?”
+
+The curate nodded. At that moment he dared not speak. A dreadful
+thought was in his mind. What if the archdeacon’s good news was news
+that the earl declined to receive the resignation? Some people might
+call that good news! The mere thought struck him dumb.
+
+The archdeacon’s next words resolved his doubts. “Frankly,” the elder
+man said in a genial tone, “I am sorry—sorry that circumstances have
+forced him to take so extreme a step. But having said that, Mr. Clode,
+I have done for the present with regret, and may come to pleasanter
+matter. I have to congratulate you. I am happy to say that Lord
+Dynmore, whom I saw yesterday, has authorized me to offer the living to
+you.”
+
+The newspaper rustled in the curate’s grasp, and for a moment he did
+not answer. Then he said huskily, “To me?”
+
+“Yes,” the archdeacon answered expansively—it was certainly a pleasant
+task he had in hand, and he could not help beaming over it. “To you,
+Mr. Clode. On one condition only,” he continued, “which is usual enough
+in all such cases, and I venture to think is particularly natural in
+this case. I mean that you have your late rector’s good word.”
+
+“Mr. Lindo’s good word?” the curate stammered.
+
+“Of course,” the unconscious archdeacon answered.
+
+The curate’s jaw dropped; but by an effort he forced a ghastly smile.
+“To be sure,” he said. “There will be no difficulty about that, I
+think.”
+
+“No,” replied the other, “for I have just seen him, and can say at once
+that he is prepared to give it you. He has behaved throughout in a most
+generous manner, and the consequence is that I have nothing more to do
+except to offer you my congratulations on your preferment.”
+
+For a moment Clode could scarcely believe in his happiness. In the
+short space of two minutes he had tasted to the full both the pleasure
+of hope and the pang of despair. Could it be that all that was over
+already? That the period of waiting and uncertainty was past and gone?
+That the prize to which he had looked so long—and with the prize the
+woman he loved—was his at last?—was actually in his grasp?
+
+His head reeled, great as was his self-control, and a haze rose before
+his eyes. As this passed away he became conscious that the archdeacon
+was shaking his hand with great heartiness, and that the thing was
+real! He was rector, or as good as rector, of Claversham. The object of
+his ambition was his! He was happy: perhaps it was the happiest moment
+of his life. He had even time to wonder whether he could not do Lindo a
+good turn—whether he could not somehow make it up to him.
+
+“You are very good,” he muttered, gratefully pressing the archdeacon’s
+hand.
+
+“I am glad it is not a stranger,” that gentleman replied heartily.
+“Oh,” he continued, turning and speaking in a different tone, “is that
+you, Mr. Bonamy? Well, there can be no harm in your hearing the news
+also. You are people’s warden, of course, and have a kind of claim to
+hear it early. To be sure you have.”
+
+“What is the news?” Mr. Bonamy asked rather shortly. He had risen and
+drawn near unnoticed, Jack Smith behind him. “Do I understand that Lord
+Dynmore has accepted the rector’s resignation?”
+
+“That is so.”
+
+“And that he proposes to present Mr. Clode?” the lawyer continued,
+looking at the curate as he named him.
+
+“Precisely,” replied the archdeacon, without hesitation.
+
+“I hope you have no objection, Mr. Bonamy,” said the curate, bowing
+slightly with a gracious air. He could afford to be gracious now. He
+even felt good—as men in such moments do.
+
+But in the lawyer’s response there was no graciousness, nor much
+apparent goodness. “I am afraid,” he said, standing up gaunt and stiff,
+with a scowl on his face, “that I must take advantage of that saving
+clause, Mr. Clode. I am people’s warden, as the archdeacon says, and
+frankly I object to your appointment—to your appointment as rector
+here.”
+
+“You object!” the curate stammered, between wrath and wonder.
+
+“Bless me!” exclaimed the archdeacon in unmixed astonishment. “What do
+you mean?”
+
+“Just what I say. I object,” repeated the lawyer firmly. This time
+Clode said nothing, but his eyes flashed, and he drew himself up, his
+face dark with passion. “Shall I state my objection now?” Mr. Bonamy
+continued, with the utmost gravity. “It is not quite formal, but—very
+well, I will do so. I have rather a curious story to tell, and I must
+go back a short time. When Mr. Lindo’s honesty in accepting the living
+was called in question about a month ago, he referred to the letters in
+which Lord Dynmore’s agents conveyed the offer to him. He had those
+letters by him. Naturally, he had preserved them with care, and he
+began to regard them in the light of valuable evidence on his behalf,
+since they showed the facts brought to his knowledge when he accepted
+the living. I have said that he had preserved them with care; and,
+indeed, he is prepared to say to-day, that from the time of his arrival
+here until now, they have never, with his knowledge or consent, passed
+out of his possession.”
+
+The lawyer’s rasping voice ceased for a moment. Stephen Clode’s face
+was a shade paler, but away from the gas-jets this could not be
+distinguished. He was arming himself to meet whatever shock was to
+come, while below this voluntary action of the brain his mind ran in an
+undercurrent of fierce, passionate anger against himself—anger that he
+had ever meddled with those fatal letters. Oh, the folly, the
+uselessness, the danger of that act, as he saw them now!
+
+“Nevertheless,” Mr. Bonamy resumed in the same even, pitiless tone,
+“when Mr. Lindo referred to these letters—which he kept, I should add,
+in a locked cupboard in his library—he found that the first in date,
+and the most important of them all, had been mutilated.”
+
+The curate’s brow cleared. “What on earth,” he broke out, “has this to
+do with me, Mr. Bonamy?” And he laughed—a laugh of relief and triumph.
+The lawyer’s last words had lifted a weight from his heart. They had
+found a mare’s nest after all.
+
+“Quite so!” the archdeacon chimed in with good-natured fussiness. “What
+has all this to do with the matter in hand, or with Mr. Clode, Mr.
+Bonamy? I fail to see.”
+
+“In a moment I will show you,” the lawyer answered. Then he paused,
+and, taking a letter-case form his pocket, leisurely extracted from it
+a small piece of paper. “I will first ask Mr. Clode,” he continued, “to
+tell us if he supplied Mr. Lindo with the names of a firm of Birmingham
+solicitors.”
+
+“Certainly I did,” replied the curate haughtily.
+
+“And you gave him their address, I think?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“Perhaps you can tell me, then, whether that is the address you wrote
+for him,” continued the lawyer smoothly, as he held out the paper for
+the curate’s inspection.
+
+“It is,” Clode answered at once. “I wrote it for Mr. Lindo, in my own
+room, and gave it him there. But I fail to see what all this has to do
+with the point you have raised,” he continued with considerable heat.
+
+“It has just this to do with it, Mr. Clode,” the lawyer answered drily,
+a twinkle in his eyes—“that this address is written on the reverse side
+of the very piece of paper which is missing from Mr. Lindo’s letter—the
+important letter I have described. And I wish to ask you, and I think
+it will be to your interest to give as clear an answer to the question
+as possible, how you came into possession of this scrap of paper.”
+
+The curate glared at his questioner. “I do not understand you,” he
+stammered. And he held out his hand for the paper.
+
+“I think you will when you look at both sides of the sheet,” replied
+the lawyer, handing it to him. “On one side there is the address you
+wrote. On the other are the last sentence and signature of a letter
+from Messrs. Gearns & Baker to Mr. Lindo. The question is a very simple
+one. How did you get possession of this piece of paper?”
+
+Clode was silent—silent, though he knew that the archdeacon was looking
+at him, and that a single hearty spontaneous denial might avert
+suspicion. He stood holding the paper in his hand, and gazing stupidly
+at the damning words, utterly unable to comprehend for the moment how
+they came to be there. Little by little, however, as the benumbing
+effects of the surprise wore off, his thoughts went back to the evening
+when the address was written, and he remembered how the rector had come
+in and surprised him, and how he had huddled away the letters. In his
+disorder, no doubt, he had left one lying among his own papers, and
+made the fatal mistake of tearing from it the scrap on which he had
+written the address.
+
+He saw it all as he stood there, still gazing at the piece of paper,
+while his rugged face grew darkly red and then again a miserable
+sallow, and the perspiration sprang out upon his forehead. He felt that
+the archdeacon’s eyes were upon him, that the archdeacon was waiting
+for him to speak. He saw the mistake he had made, but his brain,
+usually so ready, failed to supply him with the explanation he
+required.
+
+“You understand?” Mr. Bonamy said slowly. “The question is, how this
+letter came to be in your room that evening, Mr. Clode. That is the
+question.”
+
+“I cannot say,” he answered huskily. He was so shaken by the unexpected
+nature of the attack, and by the strange and ominous way in which the
+evidence against him had arisen, that he had not the courage to look up
+and face his accuser. “I think—nay, I am sure, indeed—that the rector
+must have given me the paper,” he explained, after an awkward pause.
+
+“He is positive he did not,” Mr. Bonamy answered.
+
+Then Clode recovered himself and looked up. After all, it was only his
+word against another’s. “Possibly he is,” he said, “and yet he may be
+mistaken. I cannot otherwise see how the paper could have come into my
+hands. You do not really mean,” he continued with a smile, which was
+almost easy, “to charge me with stealing the letter, I suppose?”
+
+“Well, to be quite candid, I do,” Mr. Bonamy replied curtly. Nor was
+this unexpected slap in the face rendered more tolerable by the
+qualification he hastened to add—“or getting it stolen.”
+
+The curate started. “This is not to be borne,” he cried hotly. He
+looked at the archdeacon as if expecting him to interfere. But he found
+that gentleman’s face grave and troubled, and, seeing he must expect no
+help from him at present, he continued, “Do you dare to make so serious
+an accusation on such evidence as this, Mr. Bonamy?”
+
+“On that,” the lawyer replied, pointing to the paper, “and on other
+evidence besides.”
+
+The curate flinched. Had they found Felton, the earl’s servant? Had
+they any more scraps of paper—any more self-wrought damning evidence of
+that kind? It was only by an effort, which was apparent to one at least
+of his hearers, that he gathered himself together, and answered, with a
+show of promptitude and ease, “Other evidence? What, I ask? Produce
+it!”
+
+“Here it is,” said Mr. Bonamy, pointing to Jack Smith, who had been
+standing at his elbow throughout the discussion.
+
+“What has he to do with it?” Clode muttered with dry lips.
+
+“Only this,” the barrister said quietly, addressing himself to the
+archdeacon. “That some time ago I saw Mr. Clode replace a packet in the
+cupboard in the rector’s library. He only discovered my presence in the
+room when the cupboard door was open, and his agitation on observing me
+struck me as strange. Afterward I made inquiries of Mr. Lindo, without
+telling him my reason, and learned that Mr. Clode had no business at
+that cupboard—which was, in fact, devoted to the rector’s private
+papers.”
+
+“Perhaps, Mr. Clode, you will explain that,” said the lawyer with quiet
+triumph.
+
+He might have denied it had he spoken out at once. He might have given
+Jack the lie. But he saw with sudden and horrible clearness how this
+thing fitted that other thing, and this evidence corroborated that; and
+he lost his presence of mind, and for a moment stood speechless,
+glaring at his new accuser. He did not need to look at the archdeacon
+to be sure that his face was no longer grave only, but stern and
+suspicious. The gas-jets flared before his eyes and dazzled him. The
+room seemed to be turning. He could not answer. It was only when he had
+stood for an age, as it seemed to him, dumb and self-convicted before
+those three faces, that he summoned up courage to mutter, “It is false.
+It is all false, I say!” and to stamp his foot on the floor.
+
+But no one answered him, and he quailed. His nerves were shaken. He,
+who on ordinary occasions prided himself on his tact and management,
+dared not now urge another word in his own defence lest some new piece
+of evidence should arise to give him the lie. The meaning silence of
+his accusers and his own conscience were too much for him. And,
+suddenly snatching up his hat, which lay on a chair beside him, he
+rushed from the room.
+
+He had not gone fifty yards along the pavement before he recognized the
+mad folly of this retreat—the utter surrender of all his hopes and
+ambitions which it meant. But it was too late. The strong man had met a
+stronger. His very triumph and victory had gone some way toward undoing
+him, by rendering him more open to surprise and less prepared for
+sudden attack. Now it was too late to do more than repent. He saw that.
+Hurrying through the darkness, heedless whither he went, he invented a
+dozen stories to explain his conduct. But always the archdeacon’s grave
+face rose before him, and he rejected the clever fictions and the
+sophisms in support of them, which his ingenuity was now so quick to
+suggest.
+
+How he cursed the madness, the insensate folly, which had wrecked him!
+Had he only let matters take their own course and stood aside, he would
+have gained his ends! For a minute and a half he had been as good as
+rector of Claversham. And now!
+
+Laura Hammond, crossing the hall after tea, heard the outer door open
+behind her, and, feeling the cold gust of air which entered, stopped
+and turned, and saw him standing on the mat. He had let himself in in
+this way on more than one occasion before, and it was not that which in
+a moment caused her heart to sink. She had been expecting him all day,
+for she knew the crisis was imminent, and had been hourly looking for
+news. But she had not been expecting him in this guise. There was a
+strange disorder in his air and manner. He was wet and splashed with
+mud. He held his hat in his hand, as if he had been walking bareheaded
+in the rain. His eyes shone with a wild light, and he looked at her
+oddly. She turned and went toward him. “Is it you?” she said timidly.
+
+“Oh, yes, it is I,” he answered, with a forced laugh. “I want to speak
+to you.” And he let drop the _portière_, which he had hitherto held in
+his hand.
+
+There was a light in the breakfast-room, which opened on the hall, and
+she led the way into that room. He followed her and closed the door
+behind him. She pointed to a chair, but he did not take it. “What is
+it?” she said, looking up at him in real alarm. “What is the matter,
+Stephen?”
+
+“Everything!” he answered, with another laugh. “I am leaving
+Claversham.”
+
+“You are leaving?” she said incredulously.
+
+“Yes, leaving!” he answered.
+
+“To-night?” she stammered.
+
+“Well, not to-night,” he answered, with rude irony. “To-morrow. I have
+been within an ace of getting the living, and I—I have lost it. That is
+all.”
+
+Her cheek turned a shade paler, and she laid one hand on the table to
+steady herself. “I am so sorry,” she murmured.
+
+He did not see her tremor; he heard only her words, and he resented
+them bitterly. “Have you nothing more to say than that?” he cried.
+
+She had much more to say—or, rather, had she said all that was in her
+mind she would have had. But his tone helped her to recover
+herself—helped her to play the part on which she had long ago decided.
+In her way she loved this man, and her will had melted at sight of him,
+standing downcast and defeated before her. Had he attacked her on the
+side of her affections he might have done much—he might have prevailed.
+But his hard words recalled her to her natural self. “What would you
+have me say?” she answered, looking steadily across the table at him.
+Something, she began to see, had happened besides the loss of the
+living—something which had hurt him sorely. And as she discerned this,
+she compared his dishevelled, untidy dress with the luxury of the room,
+and shivered at the thought of the precipice on the brink of which she
+had paused.
+
+He did not answer.
+
+“What would you have me say?” she repeated more firmly.
+
+“If you do not know, I cannot teach you,” he retorted, with a sneer.
+
+“You have no right to say that,” she replied bravely. “You remember our
+compact.”
+
+“You intend to keep to it?” he answered scornfully.
+
+She had no doubt about that now, and she summoned up her courage by an
+effort. “Certainly I do,” she murmured. “I thought you understood me. I
+tried to make my meaning clear.”
+
+Clode did not answer her at once. He stood looking at her, his eyes
+glowing. He knew that his only hope, if hope there might be, lay in
+gaining some word from her now—now, before any rumor to his
+disadvantage should get abroad in the town. But his temper, long
+restrained, was so infuriated by disappointment and defeat, that for
+the moment love did not prevail with him. He knew that a tender word
+might do much, but he could not frame it. When he did at last find
+tongue it was only to say, “And that is your final decision?”
+
+“It is,” she answered in a low voice. She did not dare to look up at
+him.
+
+“And all you have to say to me?”
+
+“Yes. Except that I wish you well. I shall always wish you well, Mr.
+Clode,” she muttered.
+
+“Thank you,” he answered coldly.
+
+So coldly, and with so much composure, that she did not guess the gust
+of hatred of all things and all men which was in his heart. He was
+beside himself with love, rage, disappointment. For a moment longer he
+stood gazing at her downcast face. But she did not look up at him; and
+presently, in a strange silence, he turned and went out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+HUMBLE PIE.
+
+
+The success of reticence is great. Mr. Bonamy and his nephew, as they
+went home to tea after their victory, plumed themselves not a little
+upon the proof of this which they had just given Mr. Clode. They said
+little, it is true; even to one another, but more than once Mr. Bonamy
+chuckled in a particularly dry manner, and at the top of the street
+Jack made an observation “You think the archdeacon was satisfied?” he
+asked, turning to his companion for a moment.
+
+“Absolutely,” quoth Mr. Bonamy; and he strode on with one hand in his
+pocket, his coat-tails flying, and his money jingling in a manner
+inimitable by any other Claversham person.
+
+At tea they were both silent upon the subject, but the lawyer presently
+let drop the fact that the earl had accepted the rector’s resignation.
+Jack, watchfully jealous, poor fellow, yet in his jealousy loyal to the
+core, glanced involuntarily at Kate to see what effect the news
+produced upon her; and then glanced swiftly away again. Not so swiftly,
+however, that the change in the girl’s face escaped him. He saw it
+flush with mingled pride and alarm, and then grow grave and thoughtful.
+After that she kept her eyes averted from him, and he talked busily to
+Daintry. “I must be leaving you to-morrow,” he said by-and-by, as they
+rose from the table.
+
+“You will be coming back again?” Mr. Bonamy answered, interrupting a
+loud wail from Daintry. It should be explained that Jack had not stayed
+through the whole of these weeks at Claversham, but had twice left for
+some days on circuit business. Mr. Bonamy thought he was meditating
+another of these disappearances.
+
+“I should like to do so,” Jack answered quietly, “but I must get back
+to London now.”
+
+“Well, your room will be ready for you whenever you like to come to
+us,” Mr. Bonamy replied with crabbed graciousness. And he fully meant
+what he said. He had grown used to Jack’s company. He saw, too, the
+change his presence had made in the girls’ lives, and possibly he
+entertained some thoughts of a greater change which the cousin might
+make in the life of one of them.
+
+So he was sorry to lose Jack. But Daintry was inconsolable. When she
+and Kate were alone together she made her moan, sitting in a great
+chair three sizes too big for her, with her legs sprawling before her,
+her hands on the chair-arms, and her eyes on the fire. “Oh, dear, what
+shall we do when he is gone, Kate?” she said disconsolately. “Won’t it
+be miserable?”
+
+Kate, who was bending over her work, and had been unusually silent for
+some time, looked up with a start and a rush of color to her cheeks.
+“When who is gone—oh, you mean Jack!” she said rather incoherently.
+
+“Of course I do,” Daintry answered crossly. “But you never did care for
+Jack.”
+
+“You have no right to say that,” Kate answered quickly, letting her
+work drop for the moment. “I think Jack is one of the noblest, the most
+generous—yes,” she continued quickly, “the bravest man I have ever
+known, Daintry.”
+
+Her voice trembled, and Daintry saw with surprise that her eyes were
+full of tears. “I never thought you felt like that about him,” the
+younger girl answered penitently.
+
+“Perhaps I did not a little while back,” Kate answered gently, as she
+took up her work again. “I know him better now, that is all.”
+
+It was quite true. She knew him better now. A fellow-feeling makes us
+wondrous kind. Love, which blinds our eyes to some things, opens them
+to others. Had Jack offered Kate “Their Wedding Journey” now she might
+still have asked him to change the book for another, but assuredly she
+would not have told him it sounded silly, nor hurt his feelings by so
+much as a look.
+
+It was quite true that she thought him all she said, that her eyes grew
+moist for his sake. But his was the minute only; the hour was
+another’s. Daintry, proceeding to speculate gloomily on the dulness of
+Claversham without Jack, thought her sister was attending to her,
+whereas Kate’s thoughts were far away now, centred on a fair head and a
+bright boyish face, and a solitary room in which she pictured Reginald
+Lindo sitting alone and despondent, the short-lived brilliance of his
+Claversham career already extinguished. What were his thoughts, she
+wondered. Was he regretting—for the strongest have their hours of
+weakness—the step he had taken? Was he blaming her for the advice she
+had given? Was he giving a thought to her at all, or only planning the
+new life on which he must now enter—forming the new hopes which must
+henceforth cheer him on?
+
+Kate let her work drop and looked dreamily before her. Assuredly the
+prospect was a dull and uninviting one. Before _his_ coming there had
+always been the unknown something, which a girl’s future holds—a
+possibility of change, of living a happier, fuller life. But now she
+had nothing of this kind before her. He had come and robbed her even of
+this, and given her in return only regret and humiliation, and a few—a
+very few—hours of strange pleasure and sunshine and womanly pride in a
+woman’s influence nobly used. Yet would she have had it otherwise? No,
+not for all the unknown possibilities of change, not though Claversham
+life should stretch its dulness unbroken through a century.
+
+She was sitting alone in the dining-room next morning, Mr. Bonamy being
+at the office, and Daintry out shopping, when the maid came in and
+announced that Mr. Lindo was at the door and wished to see her. “Are
+you sure that he did not ask for Mr. Bonamy?” Kate said, rising and
+laying down her work with outward composure and secret agitation.
+
+“No; he asked particularly for you, miss,” the servant answered,
+standing with her hand on the door.
+
+“Very well; you can show him in here,” Kate replied, casting an eye
+round her, but disdaining to remove the signs of domestic employment
+which met its scrutiny. “He has come to say good-by,” she thought to
+herself; and she schooled herself to play her part fitly and close the
+little drama with decency and reserve.
+
+He came in looking very thoughtful. She need not have feared for her
+father’s papers, her sister’s dog’s-eared Ollendorf, or her own sewing.
+He did not so much as glance at them. She thought she saw business in
+his eye, and she said as he advanced, “Did you wish to see me or my
+father, Mr. Lindo?”
+
+“You, Miss Bonamy,” he answered, shaking hands with her. “You have
+heard the news, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes,” she replied soberly. “I am so very sorry. I fear—I mean I regret
+now, that when you——”
+
+“Asked for advice”—he continued, helping her out with a grave smile. He
+had taken the great leather-covered easy-chair on the other side of the
+fireplace, and was sitting forward in it, toying with his hat.
+
+“Yes,” she said, coloring—“if you like to put it in that very
+flattering form—I regret now that I presumed to give it, Mr. Lindo.”
+
+“I am sorry for that,” he answered, looking up at her as he spoke.
+
+She felt herself coloring anew. “Why?” she asked rather tremulously.
+
+“Because I have come to ask your advice again. You will not refuse to
+give it me?”
+
+She looked at him in surprise; with a little annoyance even. It was
+absurd. Why should he come to her in this way? Why, because on one
+occasion, when circumstances had impelled him to speak and her to
+answer, she had presumed to advise—why should he again come to her of
+set purpose? It was ridiculous of him. “I think I must refuse,” she
+said gravely and a little formally. “I know nothing of business.”
+
+“It is not upon a matter of business,” he answered.
+
+She uttered a sigh of impatience. “I think you are very foolish, Mr.
+Lindo. Why do you not go to my father?”
+
+“Well, because it is—because it is on a rather delicate matter,” he
+answered impulsively.
+
+“Still I do not see why you should bring it to me,” she objected, with
+a flash in her gray eyes, and many memories in her mind.
+
+“Well, I will tell you why I bring it to you,” he answered bluntly.
+“Because I acted on your advice the other day; and that, you see, Miss
+Bonamy, has put me in this fix; and—and, in fact, made other advice
+necessary, don’t you see?”
+
+“I see you are inclined to be somewhat ungenerous,” she answered. “But
+if it must be so, pray go on.”
+
+He rose slowly and stood leaning against the mantel-shelf in his
+favorite attitude, his foot on the fender. “I will be as short as I
+can,” he said, a nervousness she did not fail to note in his manner.
+“Perhaps you will kindly hear me to the end before you solve my problem
+for me. It will help me a little, I think, if I may put my case in the
+third person. Miss Bonamy”—he paused on the name and cleared his
+throat, and then went on more quickly—“a man I know, young and keen,
+and at the time successful—successful beyond his hopes, so that others
+of his age and standing looked on him with envy, came one day to know a
+girl, and, from the moment of knowing her, to admire and esteem her.
+She was not only very beautiful, but he thought he saw in her, almost
+from the first hour of their acquaintance, such noble and generous
+qualities as all men, even the weakest, would fain imagine in the woman
+they love.”
+
+Kate moved suddenly in her chair as if to rise. Then she sat back
+again, and he went on.
+
+“This was a weak man,” he said in a low voice. “He had had small
+experience; let that be some excuse for him. He entered at this time on
+a new field of work in which he found himself of importance and fancied
+himself of greater importance. There he had frequent opportunities of
+meeting the woman I have mentioned, who had already made an impression
+on him. But his head was turned. He discovered that for certain small
+and unworthy reasons her goodness and her fairness were not recognized
+by those among whom he mixed, and he had the meanness to swim with the
+current and to strive to think no more of the woman to whom his heart
+had gone out. He acted like a cur, in fact, and presently he had his
+reward. Evil times came upon him. The position he loved was threatened.
+Finally he lost it, and found himself again where he had started in
+life—a poor curate without influence or brilliant prospects. Then—it
+seems an ignoble, a mean, and a miserable thing to say—he found out for
+certain that he loved this woman, and could imagine no greater honor or
+happiness than to have her for his wife.”
+
+He paused a moment, and stole a glance at her. Kate sat motionless and
+still, her lips compressed and her eyes hidden by their long lashes,
+her gaze fixed apparently on the fire. Save that her face was slightly
+flushed, and that she breathed quickly, he might have fancied that she
+did not understand, or even that she had not heard. When he spoke
+again, after waiting anxiously and vainly for any sign, his voice was
+husky and agitated. “Will you tell me, Miss Bonamy, what he should do?”
+he said. “Should he ask her to forgive him and to trust him, or should
+he go away and be silent?”
+
+She did not speak.
+
+“Kate, will you not tell me? Can I not hope to be forgiven?” He was
+stooping beside her now, and his hand almost touched her hair.
+
+Then, at last, she looked up at him. “Will not my advice come a little
+late?” she whispered tremulously and yet with a smile—a smile which was
+at once bright and tearful and eloquent beyond words.
+
+Afterward she thought of a dozen things she should have said to
+him—about his certainty of himself, about her father; but at the time
+none of these occurred to her. If he had come to her with his hands
+full, it would certainly have been otherwise. But she saw him poor
+through his own act, and her pride left her. When he took her in his
+arms and kissed her, she said not a word. And he said only, “My
+darling!”
+
+* * * * *
+
+
+The rich can afford to be niggardly. Lindo did not stay long, the
+question he had to put once answered, his claim to happiness once
+allowed. When Mr. Bonamy came in half an hour later, he found Kate
+alone. There was an austere elation in his eye which for a moment led
+her to think that he had heard her news. His first words, however,
+dispelled the idea. “I have just seen Lord Dynmore,” he said, taking
+his coat-skirts on his arms and speaking with a geniality which showed
+that he was moved out of his every-day self. “He has—he has
+considerably surprised me.”
+
+“Indeed?” said Kate, blushing and conscious, half-attentive and half
+given up to thinking how she should tell her own tale.
+
+“Yes. He has very much surprised me. He has asked me to undertake the
+agency of his property in this part of the country.”
+
+Kate dropped her sewing in genuine surprise “No?” she said. “Has he,
+indeed?”
+
+Mr. Bonamy, pursing up his lips to keep back the smile of complacency
+which would force its way, let his eyes rove round the room. “Yes,” he
+said, “I do not mind saying here that I am rather flattered. Of course
+I should not say as much out of doors.”
+
+“Oh, papa, I am so glad,” she cried, rising. An unwonted softness in
+her tone touched and pleased him.
+
+“Yes,” he continued, “I am to go over to the park to-morrow to lunch
+with him and talk over matters. He told me something else which will
+astonish you. He has behaved very handsomely to Mr. Lindo. It seems he
+saw him early this morning, after having an interview with the
+archdeacon, and offered him the living of Pocklington, in
+Oxfordshire—worth, I believe, about five hundred a year. He is going to
+give the vicar of Pocklington the rectory here.”
+
+Kate’s face was scarlet. “But I thought—I understood,” she stammered,
+“that Mr. Clode was to be rector here?”
+
+“Not at all,” said Mr. Bonamy, with some asperity. “The whole thing was
+settled before ten o’clock this morning. Mary told me at the door that
+Lindo had been here since, so I supposed he had told you something
+about it.”
+
+“He did not tell me a word of it!” Kate answered impulsively, the
+generous trick her lover had played breaking in upon her mind in all
+its fulness. “Not a word of it! But papa”—with a pause and then a rush
+of words—“he asked me to be his wife, and I—I told him I would.”
+
+For a moment Mr. Bonamy stared at his daughter as if he thought she had
+lost her wits. Probably since his boyhood he had never been so much
+astonished. “I was talking of Mr. Lindo,” he said at length, speaking
+with laborious clearness. “You are referring to your cousin, I fancy.”
+
+“No,” Kate said, striving with her happy confusion. “I mean Mr. Lindo,
+papa.”
+
+“Indeed! indeed!” Mr. Bonamy answered after another pause, speaking
+still more slowly, and gazing at her as if he had never seen her
+before, nor anything at all like her. “You have a good deal surprised
+me. And I am not easily surprised, I think. Not easily, I think.”
+
+“But you are not angry with me, papa?” she murmured rather tearfully.
+
+For a moment he still stared at her in silence, unable to overcome his
+astonishment. Then by a great effort he recovered himself. “Oh, no,” he
+said, with a smack of his old causticity, “I do not see why I should be
+angry with you, Kate. Indeed, I may say I foretold this. I always said
+that young man would introduce great changes, and he has done it. He
+has fulfilled my words to the letter, my dear!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+LOOSE ENDS.
+
+
+Dr. Gregg was one of the first persons in the town to hear of the late
+rector’s engagement. His reception of the news was characteristic. “I
+don’t believe it!” he shrieked. “I don’t believe it! It is all rubbish!
+What has he got to marry upon, I should like to know?”
+
+His informant ventured to mention the living of Pocklington.
+
+“I don’t believe it!” the little doctor shrieked. “If he had got that
+he would see her far enough before he would marry her. Do you think I
+am such a fool as to believe that?”
+
+“But you see, Bonamy—the earl’s agency will be rather a lift in the
+world for him. And he has money.”
+
+“I don’t believe it!” shrieked Gregg again. But, alas! he did. He knew
+that these things were true, and when he next met Bonamy he smiled a
+wry smile, and tried to swallow his teeth, and grovelled, still with
+the native snarl curling his lips at intervals. The doctor, indeed, had
+to suffer a good deal of unhappiness in these days. Clode, about whom
+he had boasted largely, was conspicuous by his absence. Lord Dynmore’s
+carriage might be seen any morning in front of the Bonamy offices. And
+rumor said that the earl had taken a strange fancy to the young
+clergyman whom he had so belabored. Things seemed to Gregg and to some
+other people in Claversham to be horribly out of joint at this time.
+
+Among others, poor Mrs. Hammond found her brain somewhat disordered. To
+the curate’s unaccountable withdrawal, as to the translation of the
+late rector to Pocklington, she could easily reconcile herself. But to
+Mr. Lindo’s engagement to the lawyer’s daughter, and to the surprising
+intimacy between the earl and Mr. Bonamy, she could not so readily make
+up her mind. Why, it was reported that the earl had walked into town
+and taken tea at Mr. Bonamy’s house! Still, facts are stubborn things,
+nor was it long before Mrs. Hammond was heard to say that the lawyer’s
+conduct in supporting Mr. Lindo in his trouble had produced a very
+favorable impression on her mind, and prepared her to look upon him in
+a new light.
+
+And Laura? Laura, during these changes, showed herself particularly
+bright and sparkling. She was not of a nature to feel even defeat very
+deeply, or to philosophize much over past mistakes. Her mother saw no
+change in her—nay, she marvelled, recalling her daughter’s intimacy
+with Mr. Clode and the obstinacy she had exhibited in siding with him,
+that Laura could so completely put him out of her mind and thoughts.
+But the least sensitive feel sometimes. The most thoughtless have their
+moments of care. Even the cat, with its love of home and comfort, will
+sometimes wander on a wet night. And there are times when Laura,
+doubting the future and weary of the present, wishes she had had the
+courage to do as her heart bade her, and make the plunge, careless what
+the world, and her rivals, might say of her marriage to a curate. For
+Clode’s rugged face and masculine will dominate her still. Though a
+year has elapsed, and she has not heard of him, nor probably will hear
+of him now, she thinks of him with regret and soreness. She had not
+much to give, but to her sorrow she knows now that she gave it to him,
+and that in that struggle for supremacy both were losers.
+
+The good wine last. Kate broke the news to Jack herself, and found it
+no news. “Yes, I have just seen Lindo,” he answered quietly, taking her
+hand, and looking her in the face with dry eyes. “May he make you very
+happy, Kate, and—well, I can wish you nothing better than that.” Then
+Kate broke down and cried bitterly. When she recovered herself Jack was
+gone.
+
+If you were to describe that scene to Jack Smith’s friends in the
+Temple they would jeer at you. They would cover you with ridicule and
+gibes. There is no one so keen, so sharp, so matter-of-fact, so certain
+to succeed as he, they say. They have only one fault to find with him,
+that he works too hard; that he bids fair to become one of those legal
+machines which may be seen any evening taking in fuel at solitary club
+tables, and returning afterward to dusty chambers, with the regularity
+of clockwork. But there is one thing even in his present life which his
+Temple friends do not know, and which gives me hope of him. Week by
+week there comes to him a letter from the country from a long-limbed
+girl in short frocks, whose hero he is. Time, which, like Procrustes’
+bed, brings frocks and legs to the same length at last, heals wounds
+also.
+
+When a day not far distant now shall show him Daintry in the bloom of
+budding womanhood, is it to be thought that Jack will resist her? I
+think not. But, be that as it may, with no better savor than that of
+his loyalty, the silent loyalty of an English friend, could the
+chronicle of a Bayard—much less the tale of a country town—come to an
+end.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
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