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+ <head>
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <title>
+ Foxglove Manor, by Robert W. Buchanan
+ </title>
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+
+Project Gutenberg's Foxglove Manor, Volume I (of III), by Robert W. Buchanan
+
+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'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Foxglove Manor, Volume I (of III)
+ A Novel
+
+Author: Robert W. Buchanan
+
+Release Date: March 12, 2015 [EBook #48471]
+Last Updated: November 2, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOXGLOVE MANOR, VOLUME I (OF III) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger from page images generously
+provided by the Internet Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+ <div style="height: 8em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h1>
+ FOXGLOVE MANOR
+ </h1>
+ <h3>
+ A Novel
+ </h3>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert W. Buchanan
+ </h2>
+ <h4>
+ In Three Volumes, Vol. I.
+ </h4>
+ <h5>
+ London <br /> Chatto And Windos, Piccadilly <br /> 1884
+ </h5>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <b>CONTENTS</b>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> PREFATORY NOTE. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>FOXGLOVE MANOR.</b> </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. ST. CUTHBERT’S. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. AT THE VICARAGE. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. “THERE IS A CHANGE!” </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. GEORGE HALDANE. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. THE UNKNOWN GOD. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. A SICK-CALL. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. A SUMMER SHOWER. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. THE KISS. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. EDITH. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. CONSCIENCE. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. IN THE LABORATORY. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PREFATORY NOTE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ The following attempt at a tragedy in fiction (a tragedy, however, without
+ a tragic ending) must not be construed into an attack on the English
+ priesthood generally. I have simply pictured, in the Rev. Charles Santley,
+ a type of man which exists, and of which I have had personal experience.
+ Fortunately, such men are uncommon; still more fortunately, the clergymen
+ of, the English Establishment are for the most part sane and healthy men,
+ too unimaginative for morbid deviations.
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ ROBERT BUCHANAN.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h1>
+ FOXGLOVE MANOR.
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER I. ST. CUTHBERT’S.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>s the sweet, clear
+ voices of the surpliced choristers rose in the closing verse of the hymn,
+ and the vicar, in his white robe and violet hood, ascended the pulpit
+ steps, old Gabriel Ware, sexton and doorkeeper of St. Cuthbert’s, limped
+ across the pavement and slipped into the porch, as his custom was at
+ sermon-time on Sunday afternoons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He waited till the singing had ceased and the congregation had settled in
+ their pews; and while he listened to the vicar announcing his text—“For
+ in Him we live, and move, and have our being”—he fumbled in the
+ pockets beneath his black gown of office, and then limped noiselessly out
+ into the sunshine, where, after a glance round him, he pulled out a short
+ clay pipe, well seasoned, filled it with twist, and began his usual
+ after-dinner smoke.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was a hot, shimmering July afternoon, and it was much pleasanter to sit
+ out of doors on a tombstone, listening to the vicars voice as it came
+ though the dark lancets like a sound of running water.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Half a mile or so away, nestled in trees, was the village of Omberley,
+ with its glimpses of white walls and tiled or slated roofs. Then there
+ were soft, hazy stretches of pasture, with idyllic groupings of cattle and
+ sheep and trees. The fields of wheat and barley, turnips and potatoes, lay
+ out idle and warm, growing and taking no care, and apparently causing
+ none. The sight and smell of the land filled Gabriel with a stolid
+ satisfaction at the order of nature and the providential gift of tobacco.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was but the faintest breeze stirring, and it wafted all manner of
+ sweet odours and lulling whispers about the graveyard. Everywhere there
+ was evidence of a fervent throbbing vitality and joyousness. The soft
+ green turf which spread all round the church to the limits of the
+ churchyard, here billowing over a nameless grave, here crusting with moss
+ the base of a tombstone or a marble cross or a pillared urn, here edging
+ round an oblong plot brilliant with flowers and hothouse plants,—the
+ very turf seemed stirred by glad impulses, and quivering with a crush of
+ hurrying insect life. Daisies and buttercups and little blue and pink eyed
+ flowers danced among the restless spears of grass with a merry hardihood.
+ Laburnums and sycamores stood drowsing in the hot shining air, but they
+ were not asleep, and were not silent, A persistent undertone came from
+ among their shadowy boughs, as if the sap were buzzing through every leaf
+ and stalk. Up their trunks, toiling through the rugged ravines of the
+ rough bark, travelling along the branches, flitting from one cool leaf to
+ another, myriads of nameless winged and creeping things went to and fro,
+ and added their murmurs to the vast, vague resonance of life. A soft,
+ ceaseless whispering was diffused from the tall green spires of a row of
+ poplars which Went along the iron railing that separated the enclosure
+ from the high-road. Blue and yellow butterflies fluttered from one
+ ‘flowery grave to another; the big booming humble-bee went blundering
+ among the blossoms; a grasshopper was: singing shrilly in the bushes near
+ the railing; a laborious caravan of ants was crossing the stony wilderness
+ of the gravel path; a dragon-fly hawked to and fro beneath the sycamores;
+ small birds dropped twittering on cross or urn for an instant, flashed
+ away up into a tree, and then darted off into the fields, as though too
+ full of excitement and gamesomeness to rest more than a moment anywhere.
+ Soft fleecy masses of luminous cloud slumbered in the hot blue sky
+ overhead, and only in its remote deeps did there seem to be unimpassioned
+ quietude and a sabbath stillness—only there and in the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Notwithstanding the dazzling sunshine and the heat, the church was cool
+ and dim and fragrant. The black and red tiles of the pavement, the brown
+ massive; pillars and airy arches of sandstone, the oaken pews, the
+ spacious, sanctuary with, its wide, stone steps, affected one with a.
+ refreshing sense of coolness and comfort. The light entered soft and
+ subdued through richly stained glass, for the windows looked, not on
+ familiar breadths, of English landscape glowing and ripening in the July
+ sun, but seemed rather to open into the strangely coloured world of
+ nineteen centuries ago. The blessing of the little children, the raising
+ of Lazarus, the interview at the well with the woman of Samaria, the
+ minstrel rout about the house of the ruler whose little maid lay not dead
+ but sleeping, took the place of the mundane scenes beheld through
+ unhallowed windows. Even the unpictured lancets were filled with leaded
+ panes of crimson and blue and gold. Then there was a faint, pleasant odour
+ of incense about the building, emphasizing the contrast between the mood
+ of nature and the mood of man. St. Cuthberts was floridly ritualistic, and
+ the vicar was one of those who felt that, in an age of spiritual disquiet
+ and unbelief, a man cannot cling with too many hands to the great
+ Revelation which appeared to be daily growing more elusive, and who
+ believed that if the soul may be lost, it may also be, in a measure, saved
+ through the senses. Feigned devotions and the absence of any appeal to the
+ physical nature of man had, he was convinced, drawn innumerable souls into
+ indifference on the one hand, and into Catholicism on the other. If there
+ was a resurrection of the body as well as of the soul, surely the body
+ ought not to be abandoned as a thing accursed, from which no good can
+ come. The vicar encountered no difficulty in realize ing his views of the
+ dignity of flesh and blood at St. Cuthbert’s.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A thick, softly toned carpet lay on the broad stone steps which led up to
+ the communion table. Behind the communion table, and for some distance to
+ right and left, the sanctuary walls were hung with richly coloured
+ tapestry. The table itself—or the altar, as it was usually called—was
+ draped with violet silk, embroidered with amber crosses, and upon it stood
+ a large crucifix of brass, with vases of flowers, and massive brazen
+ candlesticks on either side. In the centre a large brass gasalier was
+ suspended from a large ring, containing an enamelled cross, and beneath it
+ hung an oil-lamp, which was kept perpetually burning. Amid all the
+ coolness and fragrance and mystical flush of colour, that little leaf of
+ flame floating in its glass cup attracted the attention of the stranger
+ most singularly. It piqued the imagination, and added an indescribable
+ feeling of hallowed sorcery to the general effect, which was that of an
+ influence too spiritual not to excite reverence, but too sensuous to be
+ considered sacred. Stepping out of the churchyard, with its throbbing
+ warmth and glad undertones of commotion, into the cool, soft-lighted,
+ artificially coloured atmosphere of the church, one might have felt as if
+ dropped into the Middle Ages, but for the modern appearance of the
+ congregation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ St. Cuthbert’s was the fashionable place of worship at Omberley, and its
+ afternoon service was always well attended, though at a glance one
+ perceived, from the chromatic effect of the pews, that the large majority
+ of the congregation were of the more emotional sex. As the vicar gave out
+ his text, his taste for the bright and beautiful must have been gratified
+ by the flowers and feathers and dainty dresses, and still more by the rows
+ of young and pretty faces which were raised towards the pulpit with such
+ varied expression of interest, affection, and admiration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Charles Santley had been Vicar of St. Cuthbert’s for little less
+ than a year. He was unmarried, just turned thirty, a little over the
+ middle height, and remarkably handsome. It was not to be wondered at that,
+ with such recommendations, the new vicar had at the very outset fascinated
+ the maids and matrons of his congregation. A bright shapely face, with
+ soft dark eyes, a complexion almost feminine in its clear flush, a broad
+ scholarly forehead, black hair slightly thinned with study on the brow and
+ at the temples, black moustache and short curling black beard,—such
+ was the face of the vicar as he stood uncovered before you. His voice was
+ musical and sympathetic; the pressure of his hand invited confidence and
+ trust; his soft dark eyes not only looked into your heart, but conveyed
+ the warmth and eagerness of his own; you felt instinctively that here you
+ might turn for help which would never be found wanting, and seek advice
+ that would never lead you astray, appeal for sympathy with a certainty
+ that you would be understood, obey the prompting to transfer the burthen
+ of spiritual distress with a sure knowledge that your self-esteem would
+ never be wounded. Of course there were ladies of a critical and censorious
+ disposition among his flock, but even these were forced to acknowledge the
+ charm of his presence and the kindliness of his disposition. Among the men
+ he was less enthusiastically popular, as was natural enough; but he was
+ still greatly liked for his frankness and cordiality, and his keen
+ intellect and sterling common sense commanded their respect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On one thing you might always reckon at St. Cuthbert’s—a thoughtful,
+ eloquent sermon, delivered in a voice full of exquisite modulations. It
+ happened often enough that the preacher forgot the capacities of his
+ hearers, and became dreamy and mystical; but, though you failed to
+ comprehend, you were conscious that the fault lay less with him than with
+ your own smaller spiritual nature. This, too, happened only in certain
+ passages, and never throughout an entire discourse. He began on the grass,
+ as the lark does, and gradually rose higher and higher in the brightening
+ heavens till your vision failed; but, if you waited patiently, he
+ descended again to earth, still singing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On this Sunday afternoon, preaching from the text in the Acts, he held his
+ hearers spell-bound at the outset. Referring to the memorable discourse in
+ which the text occurs, he conjured up before them Athens—glittering,
+ garrulous, luxurious, profligate—the Athens St. Paul had seen. The
+ vivid picture was crowded with magnificent temples, countless altars,
+ innumerable shapes of mortal loveliness. Here was the Agora, with its
+ altar of the Twelve Gods, and its painted cloisters, and its plane trees,
+ beneath whose shade were disputing groups of philosophers, in the garb of
+ their various sects. Gods and goddesses, in shining marble, in gold and
+ ivory, caught the eye wherever it fell. There were altars to Fame and
+ Health and Energy, to Modesty and Persuasion, to Pity and to Oblivion. On
+ the ledges of the precipitous Acropolis glittered the shrines of Bacchus
+ and Æscülapius, Venus, Earth, and Ceres. Over all towered the splendid
+ statue of Pallas, cast from the brazen spoils of Marathon, visible, as it
+ flashed in the sun, to the sailor doubling the distant promontory of
+ Sunium. Every divinity that it had entered into the imagination of man to,
+ conceive or the heart of man to yearn for, every deified attribute of
+ human nature, had here its shrine or its voluptuous image. “Ye men of
+ Athens, all things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in
+ religion.” It was easier, said the Roman satirist, to find a god than a
+ man in Athens. And yet these men, with all their civilization, with all
+ their art and poetry and philosophy, had not found God, and,
+ notwithstanding all the statues and altars they had erected, were aware
+ that they had not found Him; for St. Paul, as he traversed their
+ resplendent city, and beheld their devotions, had found an altar with this
+ inscription, “<i>To the Unknown God.</i>” Referring then to those “certain
+ philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics,” who encountered the
+ apostle, he briefly sketched the two great systems of Greek speculation,
+ and their influence on the morality of the age: the pantheism of the
+ Stoics, who recognized in the universe a rational, organizing soul which
+ produced all things and absorbed all things,—who perceived in
+ pleasure no good, in pain no evil,—who judged virtue to be virtue
+ and vice vice, according as they conformed to reason; the materialism of
+ the Epicureans, who perceived in creation a fortuitous concourse of atoms,
+ acknowledged no Godhead, or, at best, an unknowable, irresponsible
+ Godhead, throned in happy indifference far beyond human imptration,—taught
+ that the soul perished as the body perished, and was dissipated like a
+ streak of morning cloud into the infinite azure of the inane. Following
+ Paul as the philosophers “took him and brought him unto Areopagus,” where
+ from immemorial time the judges, seated on benches hewn out of the rock,
+ had sat under the witnessing heavens, passing sentence on the greatest
+ criminals and deciding the most solemn questions of religion, he glanced
+ down once more at the city glittering with temples and thronged with gods
+ and goddesses, and bringing into broad contrast the radiant Apollo and the
+ voluptuous Aphrodite, with the scourged and thorn-crowned figure on the
+ cross, he read the message of the apostle to the pagan world. On how many
+ altars to-day might not the words “To the Unknown God” be fittingly
+ inscribed! “In Him we live, and move, and have our being;” but how few of
+ us have “felt after” and found Him! In a strain of impassioned eloquence
+ the preacher spoke of that unseen sustaining presence, which brooded over
+ and encompassed us; of the yearning of the human heart for communion with
+ the Creator; of the cry of anguish which rose from the depths of our
+ being, when our eyes ached with straining into the night and saw nothing,
+ when our quivering hands were reached out into the infinite and clasped
+ but darkness; of the intense need we felt for a personal, tangible,
+ sympathetic Being, for an incarnation of the divinity; of those ecstatic
+ ascensions of the soul, in which man “felt after” and actually touched
+ God; and, as he spoke, his glowing words gradually ceased to convey any
+ definite meaning to the great majority of his hearers: but one face,
+ flushed with joyous intelligence, one young beautiful face, with large,
+ liquid blue eyes of worship, and with eager tremulous lips, was all the
+ while turned fixedly up to his.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seated in a little curtained nook near the organ, a slim, fair girl of two
+ and twenty watched the preacher with almost breathless earnestness. She
+ was a bright little fragile-looking blossom of a being, who seemed
+ scarcely to have yet slipped out of her girlhood. Her face was of that
+ delicate white, tinged with a spot of pink, which so often indicates a
+ consumptive constitution, but in her case this delicacy of complexion was
+ owing rather to the fineness of the material of which nature had moulded
+ her. Light fine hair, in silky confusion rather than curls, clustered
+ about her forehead and temples. Her little hands still clasped the
+ music-book from which she had been playing the accompaniment of the hymn—for
+ Edith Dove was the organist of St. Cuthbert’s—as though from the
+ outset she had been too absorbed to remember that she was holding it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Occasionally the vicar turned towards the aisle in which she sat, and his
+ glance rested on her for a moment, and each time their eyes met Edith’s
+ heart beat more rapidly, and a deeper tinge of rose-colour brightened her
+ cheeks. But Mr. Santley showed no sign of kindred emotion; he was wholly
+ absorbed in the fervid thoughts which flowed from his lips in such strains
+ of exaltation. As his eyes wandered over the congregation, however, he
+ suddenly saw another face which was turned attentively towards him, and
+ which made him pause abruptly. He stopped in the midst of a sentence. He
+ felt the action of his heart cease, and he knew that the blood was driven
+ from his cheeks. He looked dazedly down at his manuscript, but was unable
+ to find the place where his memory had failed him. For a few seconds there
+ was dead silence in the church, and the eyes of the congregation were
+ turned inquiringly towards the pulpit. Then, stammering and flushing, he
+ resumed almost at haphazard. But the enthusiasm of the preacher had
+ deserted him; his attention was distracted by a rush of recollections and
+ feelings which he could not banish; the words he had written seemed to him
+ foreign and purposeless, and it was only with a resolute effort that he
+ constrained himself to read the parallel he had drawn between the
+ pantheism and materialism of the days of St. Paul and those of our own
+ time. To the close of his sermon he never once ventured to turn his eyes
+ again in the direction of that face, but kept them fixed resolutely upon
+ his manuscript. Not till he had descended the pulpit steps and was
+ crossing the chancel, did he hazard a glance across the church towards
+ that disquieting apparition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the service was ended, and the choristers, headed by the
+ cross-bearer, had passed in procession down the nave to the vestry, the
+ vicar hastily disrobed and issued into the churchyard. As with a strange
+ fluttering hopefulness he had half anticipated, he was being waited for. A
+ lady was moving slowly about among the graves, pausing now and again to
+ read an inscription on a stone, but keeping a constant observation on the
+ church doors. As he came out of the porch, she advanced to meet him, with
+ a smile upon the face which had so terribly disconcerted him. She was a
+ most beautiful, starry-looking creature—a tall, graceful, supple
+ figure, with the exquisitely moulded head of a Greek statue; a ripe rich
+ complexion suffused with a blush-rose tint; large lovely black eyes full
+ of fire and softness; long, curved, black eyelashes; a profusion of silky
+ black hair parted in little waves on a broad, bright forehead; and a pair
+ of sweet, red lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She held out a little white hand to him, and, as he took it, their first
+ words were uttered simultaneously.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ellen!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mr. Santley!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I never dreamed,” said the vicar, excitedly, “I never dared to hope, to
+ see you again!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, the world is very small,” she replied gaily, “and people keep
+ crossing each other at the most unexpected times and in the oddest of
+ places. But I am so glad to see you. Are you doing well? You can scarcely
+ imagine how curious it was when I recognized you to-day. Of course I had
+ heard your name as our vicar, but I had no idea it could be <i>you</i>.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am sure you are not more glad than I am,” rejoined the vicar. “Are you
+ staying at Omberley? Have you friends here?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She regarded him for a moment with a mixed expression of surprise and
+ amusement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you not know that I am one of your parishioners now?” she asked, with
+ a pleasant laugh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He looked wonderingly into her dark, joyous eyes, and felt a sudden sense
+ of chill and darkness within him, as a quick intelligence of who and what
+ she now was flashed into his mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you at the Manor?” he asked, in a low, agitated voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes,” she answered, without noticing his emotion. “We arrived only
+ yesterday, and have hardly had time yet to feel that we are at home; but I
+ could not resist the inclination to see what sort of a church, and what
+ sort of a vicar,” she added, with a glance of sly candour, “we had at St.
+ Cuthbert’s. I am really so glad I came. Of course you will call and see us
+ as soon and as often as you can, will you not? Mr. Haldane will be
+ delighted, I know.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are very kind,” said the vicar, scarcely aware of what he was saying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Indeed, I wish to be so,” she replied, smiling. “Of course you know Mr.
+ Haldane?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No; I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him. He—you had gone
+ abroad before I came to Omberley.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then you have not been here long?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Not quite a year yet.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And do you like the place—and the people?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Both, very much indeed!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are not married yet, I think Mr. Haldane said?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar looked at her with a sadness that was almost reproachful as he
+ answered, “No; I have my sister living with me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “How pleasant! You <i>must</i> bring Miss Santley with you when you come,
+ will you not?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As she spoke she moved slowly towards the gateway opening on to the road,
+ where a little basket-carriage was awaiting her. He accompanied her, and
+ for a few seconds there was silence between them. Then they shook hands
+ again before she got into the carriage, and she repeated her assurance—
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am so glad to have met you, Mr. Santley!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She took the reins, and, lightly flicking the ponies with the whip,
+ flashed upon him a farewell smile from those dark, spiritual eyes and
+ laughing lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar turned back into the churchyard, and following a narrow path
+ that led across the sward through a wicket and a small beech plantation,
+ entered the Vicarage with a pale, troubled face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER II. AT THE VICARAGE.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen he reached the
+ house he found that his presence was needed at the bedside of a labourer,
+ who had met with a serious accident a day or two before, and who was now
+ sinking rapidly. Mr. Santley was a man who never begrudged time or trouble
+ in the interests of his parishioners; and, though he had yet another
+ service to attend, and was already fatigued by the work of the day, he
+ readily signified his willingness to comply with the request of the dying
+ man, and at once started for the village.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He felt at the moment that the duty placed before him would be a relief
+ from the thronging recollections and the wild promptings which had set his
+ heart and brain in a turmoil. As he went down the road, however, the face
+ of the dying man who had sent to seek his priestly aid, and the face of
+ the beautiful wife of the owner of Foxglove Manor, seemed to be striving
+ for mastery over him; he was unable to concentrate his attention on any
+ subject. His will was in abeyance, and he appeared to himself to be in a
+ sort of waking nightmare, in which the most distorted thoughts of marriage
+ and death, of a lost love and of a lost God, of the mockery of life, the
+ mockery of youth, the mockery of religion, presented themselves before him
+ in a hideous masquerade, till the function he was about to fulfil appeared
+ to him at one moment a sacrilege and at another a degrading folly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To understand in some degree the vicars mental condition, it is necessary
+ to glance back on his past life. In early manhood Charles Santley had been
+ seriously impressed with the sense of a special vocation to a religious
+ life. He was the son of a wealthy merchant, whose entire fortune had
+ perished in one of our great commercial crises, and whose death had
+ followed close upon his ruin. Up to that period Charles had been undecided
+ as to his choice of a pursuit; but the necessity of making an immediate
+ selection resulted in his devoting himself to the Church. Barely
+ sufficient had been saved from the wreck of their property to support his
+ widowed mother and his sister. For himself, he was endowed with a splendid
+ physique, a keen intellect, and indomitable energy; and he at once flung
+ himself into his new career. He supported himself by teaching until he was
+ admitted to orders, when he obtained a curacy, and eventually, through the
+ interest of some old friends of his father, he was presented with the
+ living of St. Cuthbert’s. In the course of these years of struggle,
+ however, there was gradually developing within the man a spirit which
+ threatened to render his success worse than useless to him. Ardent,
+ emotional, profoundly convinced of the eternal truths of revelation and of
+ the glorious mission of the Church, the young clergyman was at the same
+ time boldly speculative and keenly alive to the grandiose developments of
+ the modern schools of thought. It was not till he stood on the extreme
+ verge of science and looked beyond that he fully realized his position. He
+ then perceived with horror that it was no longer impossible—that it
+ was even no longer difficult—to regard the great message of
+ redemption as a dream of the world, the glorious faith of Christendom as a
+ purely ethnic mythology, morality as a merely natural growth of a natural
+ instinct of self-preservation. Indeed, the difficulty consisted in
+ believing otherwise. The Fatherhood of a personal God was slipping away
+ from his soul; the Sonship of a Saviour was melting into a fantastic
+ unreality; the conviction of a personal immortality was dissipating into
+ mental mist and darkness. The mystery of evil was growing into a fiendish
+ enigma; virtue passed him, and showed herself to be a hollow mask.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His whole nature rose in revolt against this horrible scientific travesty
+ of Gods universe. He shrank back alike from the new truths and from the
+ theories evolved from them. His faith could not stand the test of the
+ wider knowledge. If God were indeed a myth, immortality but a dream,
+ virtue an unprofitable delusion, man simply a beast gifted with speech,
+ better the old faith concerning all these—accepted though it were in
+ despite of reason and in outrage of immortal truth—than the hideous
+ simulacra of the new philosophy. He cast himself back upon the bosom of
+ the Church; he clung to her as to the garment of God; but he was powerless
+ to exorcise the spirit of scepticism. It rose before him in sacred places,
+ it scoffed at his most earnest and impassioned utterances; he seemed to
+ hear within himself cynical laughter as he stood at the bedside of the
+ dying; when he knelt to pray it stood at his ear and suggested blasphemy;
+ it converted the solemn light of the Church into a motley atmosphere of
+ superstition; it stimulated his strong animal nature to the very bounds of
+ self-restraint. Still, if he was unable to exorcise it, he had yet the
+ strength to contend with and to master it. Precisely because he was
+ sceptical he was rigid in outward doctrine, zealous for forms, and
+ indefatigable in the discharge of his clerical functions. In his
+ passionate endeavour to convince himself, he convinced his hearers and
+ confirmed them in the faith in which he was himself unable to trust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day the old conflict between the sacerdotal and the sceptical was
+ complicated by new elements of spiritual discord. After seven years of
+ hopeless separation, Charles Santley had once more stood face to face with
+ the embodied dream and inspiration of his early manhood, and had found
+ her, in the full lustre of her peerless womanhood, another man’s wife.
+ During those years he had, it was true, reconciled himself to what then
+ had been forced upon him as the inevitable, and he had sternly set himself
+ to master the problem of his existence, without any secret hope that in
+ the coming years his success might bring her within his reach; but he had
+ never forgotten her. She was to him the starry poetry of his youth. He
+ looked back to the time when he had first known and loved her, as a sadder
+ and a wiser world looks back to the Golden Age. The memory of her was the
+ ghost of an ancient worship, flitting in a dim rosy twilight about the
+ Elysian fields of memory, and, it being twilight, the fields were touched
+ with a hallowed feeling of loss and a divine sentiment of regret. And now—oh,
+ bitter irony of time and fortune!—now that, he had achieved success,
+ now that all the old gulfs which had separated them were spanned with
+ golden bridges, now that he might have claimed her and she might have been
+ proud to acknowledge the claim, she once more crossed his life—a
+ vision of beauty, a star of inspiration—and once, more he knew that
+ she was hopelessly, infinitely more hopelessly than ever, raised beyond
+ his seeking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was detained so long at the bedside of the dying man that, by the time
+ he had again reached the Vicarage, the bells were ringing for evening
+ service and the western sky was ablaze with sunset. In the church the
+ light streamed through the lancets and the painted casements, filling the
+ air with motley breadths of glowing colour, and painting pillar and arch
+ and the brown sandstone with glorious blazonry. Even in the curtained nook
+ near the organ the space was flooded with enchanted lights, and Edith Dove
+ sat beside the tall gilded instrument like a picture of St. Cecilia in an
+ illuminated missal. In the pulpit the vicar stood as if transfigured. He
+ spoke, too, as though he felt that this was the splendour of a new heaven
+ opening upon a new earth, and the glad rustle of the trees in the cool
+ breeze outside was the murmur of paradise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,” were the words of
+ his text, and throughout the fervid exposition of the apostle’s faith in
+ the resurrection the sweet, blue eyes and the eager lips of the organist
+ were turned towards the preacher. He seemed this evening, however, to be
+ unconscious of her presence. He addressed himself entirely to the
+ listeners in the pews in front of him, and never cast even a solitary
+ glance towards the aisle where she sat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the close of the service Edith found Miss Santley waiting for her at
+ the entrance. It had now been customary for several weeks past for Miss
+ Dove to go over to the Vicarage on Sunday evening and remain to supper
+ with Mr. Santley and his sister. They went slowly through the churchyard
+ together, and took the little path which led to the house. They remained
+ chatting at the wicket for a few moments, expecting the appearance of the
+ vicar. When Mr. Santley issued from the church, however, he passed quickly
+ down the gravelled walk to the high-road. He had thrown a rapid look
+ towards the plantation, and had seen the young women, but he gave no
+ indication of having observed them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why, Charles is not coming!” exclaimed Miss Santley, with surprise, as
+ she saw her brother; “he surely cannot be going down to Omberley again.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He is not going to Omberley, dear,” said Edith, who had been watching for
+ the vicar, and had been keen enough to notice the hasty glance he had cast
+ in their direction; “he is going up the road.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then wherever can he be going to? And he had not had tea yet, poor
+ fellow!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Santley stepped a few paces back into the churchyard, and stood on
+ tiptoe to catch a glimpse of him over the hedge; but the vicar had already
+ passed out of sight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Never mind, dear,” she said to Edith. “Shall we go in and have a little
+ chat by ourselves? He may have some sick call or other, and he is sure to
+ be back soon, or he would have told me where he was going. Come, you
+ needn’t look so sad,” Miss Santley continued, as she observed the
+ expression of her companion’s face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I didn’t think I was looking sad,” replied Edith, blushing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh yes, you were; dreadfully,” said Miss Santley, laughing in a bantering
+ manner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You don’t think Mr. Santley is—is not quite well?” asked Edith,
+ timidly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh no; Charles is quite well, I am sure.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Perhaps he is displeased with something,” said Edith, as if speaking to
+ herself rather than to Miss Santley.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What a little fidget you are!” said her companion, taking the girl’s arm.
+ “I know what you are thinking of. I am sure he has no cause to be
+ displeased with <i>you</i>, at any rate.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I hope not,” replied Miss Dove, brightening a little. “Only I felt a
+ misgiving. You do feel misgivings about all sorts of things, don’t you,
+ Mary, without knowing why—a sort of presentiment and an uneasy
+ feeling that something is going to happen?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Young people in love, I believe, experience feelings of that kind,” said
+ Miss Santley, with mock gravity, “Come in, you dear little goose, and
+ don’t vex your poor wee heart like that. He will be back before we have
+ got half our talk over.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar strode rapidly along the road until he reached the summit of a
+ rising ground, from which he could see two counties spread out before him
+ in fruitful undulations of field and meadow and woodland. The sunset was
+ burning down in front of him. Far away in the distant landscape were soft
+ mists of blue smoke rising from half-hidden villages, and here and there
+ flashed points of brightness where the sun struck on the windows of a
+ farmstead. On either hand were great expanses of yellowing corn swaying in
+ the cool breeze and reddening in the low crimson light. He left the road,
+ and passed through a gate into one of the fields. Following a footpath, he
+ went along the hedge till he reached a stile. Here he was alone and
+ concealed in a vast sea of rustling corn. He sat down on the top of the
+ stile, and resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands,
+ gazed abstractedly into the glowing west.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A single word which escaped him betrayed the workings of his mind:
+ “Married!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seven years ago, when Charles Santley began his struggle in life, he
+ obtained through a clerical friend a position as teacher of classics in a
+ seminary for young ladies in a small sea-side town in a southern county.
+ He found his new labour especially congenial. A handsome young professor,
+ whose attention was fixed on the Church, and who purposed to devote
+ himself to her service, was cordially-welcomed by the devout ladies who
+ conducted the establishment. They were three sisters who had been
+ overlooked in the wide yearning crowd of unloved womanhood, and who had
+ turned for consolation to the mystical passions of religion. Under their
+ care a bevy of bright young creatures were brought up as in the chaste
+ seclusion of a convent. Their impressionable natures were surrounded by a
+ strange artificial atmosphere of spiritual emotion; life shone in upon
+ them, as it were, through the lancets of a-mediaeval ecclesiasticism, and
+ their young hearts, breaking into blossom, were coloured once and for ever
+ with those deep glowing tints.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was here that the young man, in the first dawn of the romance of
+ manhood, met the beautiful girl who was now the wife of the owner of
+ Foxglove Manor. She was then turned of seventeen, and had become aware of
+ the first shy longings and sweet impulses of her nature. She was his
+ favourite pupil, and sat at his right hand at the long table when he gave
+ his lessons. He used her pen and pencil, referred to her books, touched
+ her hand with his in the ordinary work of the lesson. Her clothes touched
+ his clothes beneath the table. At times their feet met accidentally. She
+ regularly put a flower in a glass of water before his place. All these
+ trifles were the thrilling incidents of a delicious romance which the
+ school-girl was making in her flurried little heart. He, too, was not
+ insensible to the trifles which affected his passionate pupil. Her great
+ dark eyes sent electric flashes through him. Her breath reached him
+ sweeter than roses. Her beautiful dark hair rubbed against his shoulder or
+ his cheek, and he tried to prevent the hot blood from flushing into his
+ face. When their hands touched he could have snatched hers and kissed it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ellen Derwent was happily not a boarder at the establishment, but resided
+ with her aunt. Her family were wealthy country people, and Ellen, who had
+ been ailing for a little while, had been ordered to the sea-side for
+ change of air. Early in the bright mornings, and after the day’s schooling
+ was over, Ellen wandered about the sea-shore or took long walks along the
+ cliffs. Santley met her first by accident, and after that, though the
+ meetings might still be called accidental, each knew that to-morrow and
+ to-morrow and yet again to-morrow the same instinctive feeling—call
+ it a divine chance or love’s premonition—would bring them together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ah! happy, radiant days by that glad sea and in the wild loveliness of
+ those romantic cliffs! Oh, vision of flushed cheek and shining eyes, and
+ sweet red lips and throbbing bosom! Oh, dim heavenly summer dawns, when
+ the sea mists were just brightening, and the little birds were singing,
+ and the sea-side town was still half asleep, and only two lovers were
+ walking hand in hand along the green brow of the cliffs! Oh, sweet autumn
+ twilights which the shining eyes seemed to fill with dark burning lustre!
+ Oh, kisses, sweeter than ever pressed by woman’s lips before or since! Oh,
+ thrill of clasped hands and mad palpitations of loving bosoms!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The swaying corn sounded like the sea as the breeze passed over it, and
+ the-murmur broke the vicars reverie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Married!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Married? yes, married! The sweet secret could not be kept for ever, and
+ when Miss Lilburn, Ellen’s aunt, discovered it, she at once spoke to Mr.
+ Santley. She did not oppose his suit—indeed, she liked him greatly,
+ but love, after all, was no mere school-girl’s dream. Was he in a position
+ to make Ellen his wife? In any case, they must know about it at home. If
+ Mr. Derwent approved, she would be most happy that Mr. Santley should
+ visit her; but, in the meantime, it was only prudent that Ellen should
+ discontinue these pleasant rambles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had never seen Ellen since, until her face made his heart stand still
+ in the midst of his sermon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar rose from the stile with clenched hands and set teeth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Bitter, bitter!” he said, raising his face to the sky and shaking his
+ head as though he saw above him an invisible face, and spoke half in
+ exquisite pain, half in stoical endurance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER III. “THERE IS A CHANGE!”
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen Edith and Miss
+ Santley reached the Vicarage, they went into the parlour, which, besides
+ having a western exposure, commanded to a considerable distance a view of
+ the high-road along which the vicar had passed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I always think this is the pleasantest room in the house,” said Miss
+ Santley, as she drew an armchair into the recess of the open window, and
+ Edith seated herself on the couch. “Charles prefers an eastern frontage,
+ for the sake of the early morning, he says; but I am always. busy in the
+ morning, so I suppose I like the afternoon light best, when I have a
+ little time to sit and bask.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Isn’t it natural, too,” suggested Edith, “that men should prefer sunrise
+ and women sunset? Men are so active and sanguine, and have so many
+ interests to engage their attention, and women—well, as a rule—are
+ such dreamers! Is it not almost constitutional?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And when did you ever see me dreaming, may I ask?” inquired Miss Santley.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh no; you are not one of the dreamers,” replied Edith, quickly. “You
+ should have been called Martha instead of Mary.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Insinuating that I am a bit of a busybody, eh?” said Miss Santley, with a
+ sly twinkle of humour.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know I did not mean to insinuate that.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Or that you had yourself chosen the better part, eh?” she continued
+ gaily.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith coloured deeply, and cast her eyes on the floor, while an expression
+ of pain passed across her face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Nay, my dear, do not look hurt. You know that was only said in jest.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You cannot tell how such jests hurt me,” replied the girl, her lips
+ beginning to tremble.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Even between our two selves?” asked Miss Santley, taking Edith’s hand
+ gently and stroking it with both of hers. “You know, my dear little girl,
+ how I love you, and how pleased I was when I discovered the way in which
+ that poor little heart of yours was beating. You know that there is no one
+ in the world whom I would more gladly—ay, or a thousandth part so
+ gladly—take for a sister. Don’t you, Edith? Answer me, dear.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes,” replied the girl, letting her head hang upon her bosom, and feeling
+ her face on flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And have I not tried to help you? I know Charles is fond of you—I
+ am sure of that. I have eyes in my head, my dear, though they are not so
+ young and pretty as yours. And I know, too, that a little while ago he was
+ anxious to know what I would say if he should propose to take a wife. I
+ shall be only too pleased when he makes up his mind. It will relieve me of
+ a great deal of care and anxiety. And he could not in the wide world
+ choose a better or a dearer little girl.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Santley was not ordinarily of a demonstrative disposition, but as she
+ uttered those last words she drew Edith towards her and kissed her on the
+ forehead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar’s sister was some twelve years his senior. A stout, homely,
+ motherly little woman, with plain but pleasing features, brown hair, a
+ shrewd but kindly expression, clear grey eyes, and a firm mouth and chin,
+ she was as unlike the Vicar in personal appearance as she was unlike him
+ in character and temperament. This family unlikeness, however, had had no
+ prejudicial effect on their mutual affection, though in Miss Santley’s
+ case it was the source of much secret uneasiness on her brother’s account.
+ As unimaginative as she was practical, she was at a loss to understand her
+ brother’s emotional mysticism and dreamy idealism; but her knowledge of
+ human nature made her timorously aware of the dangers which beset the
+ combination of a splendid physique with a glowing temperament which was
+ almost febrile in its sensuous impulsiveness. She was spared the torture
+ of sharing that darker secret of unbelief; but she was sufficiently
+ conscious of the strong fervid nature of the vicar, to feel thankful that
+ Edith had made a deep impression on him, and that when he did marry it
+ would be a bright and congenial young creature who would be worthy of him
+ and attached to herself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “So why should it hurt you, if I do jest a little?” asked Miss Santley, as
+ she kissed Edith. “Love cannot always be transcendental, otherwise two
+ people will never come closely together. The best gift a couple of lovers
+ can possess in common, is a capacity for a little fun and affectionate
+ wit. Your solemn lovers are always misunderstanding each other, and
+ quarrelling and making it up again.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But we are not lovers yet, Mary,” said Edith in a timid whisper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Not yet, perhaps; but you will be soon, if I am capable of forming any
+ opinion.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Edith replied with a sigh; and her soft blue
+ eyes filled with tears. Then raising her eyes imploringly to Miss Santley,
+ and nervously taking her hand, she continued: “Oh, Mary, do not think me
+ too forward and eager and unwomanly. Do not judge me too hardly. I know a
+ girl should not give her heart away till she is asked for it. But I cannot
+ help it—I love him—I love him so! I have done all I could to
+ prevent myself from loving him, but it is no use—oh! it is no use.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She burst into a paroxysm of passionate sobbing, and Miss Santley, without
+ saying a word, put her arms about her and softly caressed her soft flaxen
+ hair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The outburst was gradually subdued, and Edith, with a hot glowing face
+ hidden on her friend’s shoulder, was too ashamed to change her position.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you feel better now, dear? asked Miss Santley in a kindly voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, Mary, are you not ashamed of me—disgusted?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Santley replied in a woman’s way with another kiss, and again fondled
+ the girl’s head.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After a pause of a few moments, she gently raised her face and regarded it
+ affectionately.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You must come upstairs and wash away those tell-tales before he returns.
+ And”—she added a little hesitatingly—“will you not trust me
+ with the cause of all this trouble?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am afraid you will laugh at me, dear, it must seem such a foolish cause
+ to you. And I know you will say it was all simply my fancy.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What was it?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know, dear, where I sit in church?” Edith began, nervously playing
+ with the lace on Miss Santley’s dress. “Well, he always used to turn twice
+ or thrice in my direction during the sermon. I used to think he did it
+ because he knew I was there. And he did it this afternoon. But in the
+ evening he never looked once during the whole time.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Santley began to smile in spite of herself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then when he came out of the church he saw you and me waiting for him—I
+ saw him give one single sharp look—and then he went on as if he had
+ not perceived us. He would not have gone away like that, Mary, if I had
+ not been with you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And is that all?” inquired Mary as Edith paused.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I think it is quite enough,” the latter replied sorrowfully. “It means
+ that he is tired of me; he was displeased that I was with you; he did not
+ want to speak to me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My dear girl, all this is simply silly fancy; you will make your whole
+ life miserable if you imagine things in this way.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I knew you would say that; but you do not understand. I hardly understand
+ myself; but I know what I say is true. You remember old Harry Wilson down
+ in the village—he has a wooden leg, you know, but when there is
+ going to be a bad change of weather, he says he can feel it in the foot he
+ has lost; and he is always right. I think I am like him, dear; I have lost
+ something, and it makes me feel when there is a change, long before the
+ storm breaks.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “All this is nothing but nonsense, my little woman!” said Miss Santley
+ reassuringly. “Come with me upstairs, and let us make ourselves
+ presentable.” When Edith had bathed her face, the two came downstairs
+ again, but instead of returning to the parlour they went into the library.
+ This was specially the vicar’s room, and, more than any other, it
+ indicated the tastes and character of its occupant. The whole house,
+ indeed, was tinged with the mediaeval colouring of the church, and in all
+ parts of it you came upon indications of the ecclesiastical spirit of the
+ owner; but here the vicar had given fullest expression to his fancy, and
+ the room had as much the appearance of an oratory as of a library. At one
+ end a small alcove jutted out into the plantation, and the windows were
+ filled with stained glass. On the walls hung several of Raphael’s
+ cartoons; on the mantelpiece stood, under glass, a marble group of The
+ Dead Christ; the furniture, which was of carved oak, suggested the stalls
+ in the chancel; the brass gasalier and brackets were of ecclesiastical
+ design; and, lastly, the library shelves were solemnly weighted with long
+ rows of theology, sermons, and Biblical literature in several languages.
+ In a separate bookcase, which was kept locked, were gathered together a
+ number of scientific works and volumes of modern speculative philosophy. A
+ third bookcase was devoted to history, poetry, travels, and miscellaneous
+ works. The great bulk of the library, however, was clerical, and the vicar
+ had within arm’s reach a fair epitome of all that the good men of all ages
+ and many countries had discovered regarding the mystery of the world and
+ the relationship of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In one corner of the room stood a tall richly carved triangular cupboard
+ of black oak, and it too, like the bookcase of science, was kept
+ perpetually locked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Edith entered the room her eyes fell upon it, and turning to her
+ companion she asked—
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, Mary, have you discovered the skeleton yet?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No,” replied Miss Santley, with a laugh. “Charles is forgetful enough in
+ some things, but he has never yet left the key in that lock. I once asked
+ him what it was he concealed so carefully, but he refused to satisfy my
+ curiosity; so I resolved to trust to chance and his carelessness. I have
+ waited so long, however, that my curiosity has at last been tired out. I
+ don’t suppose, after all, it is anything worth knowing.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And why does he always keep this bookcase locked too? The books all look
+ so fresh and new, and they are much more attractive than those dusty old
+ fellows any one can look into. I should like to read several of those, one
+ hears so much about them. There is Darwin, ‘The Descent of Man’—I
+ have read articles about that book in the magazines, and I know he
+ believes Adam and Eve were apes in Paradise or something like that.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, my dear, Charles would never allow you to read those books on any
+ account. They are all dreadfully wicked and blasphemous. He only reads
+ them himself to refute them and to be able to show how false and dangerous
+ they are.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith, who had approached the window, now suddenly started back, and a
+ bright flush rose to her face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Here is Mr. Santley, Mary! How pale and wearied he looks!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A moment or two later the vicar entered the library. At the sight of Miss
+ Dove he paused for an instant, and then advancing, held out his hand to
+ her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You here, Miss Edith!” he said coldly. “How are you, and how is your
+ aunt?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not wait for an answer, but went to his writing-table and sat down.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The two women exchanged glances of surprise, and Edith’s face grew sad and
+ white.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you not well, Charles?” his sister asked, going up to him and looking
+ solicitously into his face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am not very well this evening,” replied the vicar; “it is the weather,
+ I think. If Miss Edith will excuse me, I think I will leave you and lie
+ down. I feel tired.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He rose again abruptly, and Edith stood regarding him with large, wistful
+ eyes. He moved towards the door, and then suddenly stopped and turned to
+ her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Good evening,” he said once more, holding out his hand and speaking in a
+ cold, distant manner. “Present my compliments to your aunt.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I hope you will be well in the morning,” said Edith, timidly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thanks. Yes; I expect I shall be all right again after a little rest.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He turned and left her, and Miss Santley, glancing at her significantly,
+ followed him to his room.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He has over-exerted himself to-day,” said Mary a little later, as she
+ accompanied Miss Dove to the garden gate. “He had a sick call in the
+ afternoon, and was unable to take his usual rest. You will excuse my not
+ accompanying you home, will you not?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh certainly,” said Edith. “I hope it is nothing serious. Would you not
+ like to see Dr. Spruce? I can call, you know.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He says he does not need the doctor; he knows what is the matter with
+ him, and only requires rest. Good night, dear! I am so sorry I cannot go
+ part of the way with you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do not think of that,” said Edith, shaking hands. “It is not late, and
+ you must not leave him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sunset had lowered down to its last red embers, but it was still quite
+ light as Edith turned away from the Vicarage gate. She proceeded slowly
+ down the road towards the village for a few moments, and then paused and
+ looked back. No one was on the road. Retracing her steps, she passed the
+ Vicarage at a quick pace, and took the direction which the vicar had taken
+ an hour before. Strangely enough, she stopped at the top of the rising
+ ground where he had stopped; went through the same gate, into the same
+ field, and, following the same path, reached the stile on which he had
+ sat. Here she sat down, with the great sea of corn whispering and
+ murmuring about her, and the distant landscape growing-gradually more and
+ more indistinct in the bluish vapour of the twilight. Alone and hidden
+ from observation, she sat on the step with her arms on the cross-bar of
+ the stile and her head laid on them, weeping bitterly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have lost something, and it makes, me feel when there is a change!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER IV. GEORGE HALDANE.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he low-lying
+ landscape had vanished in the twilight, and the stars were twinkling in
+ the clear blue sky before Edith rose, dried her eyes, and began to return
+ homeward. The moon had risen, but had yet scarcely freed itself from the
+ tops of the dark woods, through which it shone round and ruddy. As she
+ passed the Vicarage, she paused and looked up at the windows. She felt
+ prompted to steal quietly up to the door and inquire whether Mr. Santley
+ was any better, but a fear arising from many causes held her back.
+ Besides, the house was in darkness, and every one seemed to have retired
+ to rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since Edith had been in the habit of visiting the Vicarage, this was the
+ first occasion on which she had returned home alone. Unreasonable as she
+ acknowledged the suspicion to be, she could not rid herself of the belief
+ that Mr. Santleys indisposition had been, assumed as an excuse for
+ avoiding her. She strove to convince herself that she was foolishly
+ sensitive and jealous, to hope that the change in the vicars manner was
+ but an illusion of her excited fancy, to feel confident that when she saw
+ him to-morrow she would recognize how childish she had been.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Dove was exceedingly fond of music, and during the week she was
+ accustomed to spend hours alone in the church, giving utterance to her
+ thoughts, and feelings in dreamy voluntaries, which were the fugitive
+ inspiration of the moment, or filling the cool, richly lighted aisles with
+ the impassioned strains of Mozart, Haydn, and Mendelssohn. The sound of
+ the organ could be heard at the Vicarage, and Mr. Santley had been in the
+ habit of going into the church, and conversing with her while she played.
+ It was with the hope that one of his favourite pieces would again bring
+ him to her that, during the afternoon of the following day, Edith took her
+ seat at the organ. With nervous, eager fingers she swept the key-board,
+ and sent her troubled heart into the yearning anguish and clamorous
+ impetration of the <i>Agnus Dei</i> of Haydn’s No. 2. When she had
+ finished she rested for a little, and glanced expectantly down the aisle;
+ but no footstep disturbed the quiet of the place. She then turned to
+ another of the vicar’s favourites—a <i>Gloria</i> of Mozart’s. The
+ volumes of throbbing sound vibrated through the stained windows, and
+ floated across the bright churchyard to the Vicarage; but Ediths hope was
+ not realized. She played till she felt wearied, rather with the
+ hopelessness of her task than with the physical exertion; but the
+ schoolboy who blew the organ for her was exhausted, and when she saw how
+ red and hot he looked, she closed the instrument and dismissed him. Every
+ day that week she repeated her experiment, but her music had apparently
+ lost its magical influence. The vicar never came. She called thrice to see
+ Miss Santley, but each time he was away from home. Once she saw him in the
+ village, and her heart began to beat violently as he approached; but they
+ were on different sides of the street, and instead of crossing over to
+ her, as he had always done hitherto, he merely smiled, raised his hat, and
+ passed on. Sunday came round at length, and she looked forward with a sad,
+ painful wonder to the customary visit in the evening.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was a bright, breezy sabbath morning, and the great limes and sycamores
+ which buried Foxglove Manor in a wilderness of billowy verdure, rolled
+ gladsomely in the sun, and filled the world with a vast sealike <i>susurrus</i>.
+ On the stone terrace which ran along the front of the mansion the master
+ of the Manor was lounging, with a cigar in his mouth, and a huge
+ deer-hound basking at his feet; while in the shadow of the room his wife
+ stood at an open French window, conversing with him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane was a tall, broad-shouldered, powerful man of about forty
+ years of age. His face, especially in repose, was by no means handsome.
+ His grave, large, strongly marked features expressed decision, daring, and
+ indomitable force. His forehead was broad, and deeply marked with the
+ perpendicular lines of long mental labour. The poise of his head suggested
+ a habit of boldly confronting an opponent. His short hair and closely
+ trimmed beard were touched with gray, and gave a certain keenness and
+ frostiness to his appearance. A grim, self-sufficing, iron-natured man,
+ one would have said, until one had looked into his bright blue-gray eyes,
+ which lit up his strong, rugged face with an expression of frankness and
+ dry humour.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My dear Nell,” he said at length, in answer to the persistent persuasion
+ of his wife, “do not be cross. There are two things in the world which I
+ abhor beyond all others: a damp church and a dry sermon. Invite your vicar
+ as often as you please. I will do my best to entertain him; but do not
+ press me to sit out an interminable farrago of irritating platitudes in a
+ chilly, straight-backed pew.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I assure you, George, you will be charmed with him, if you will only let
+ me prevail on you to come.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why cannot you Christians dispense with incense, and allow smoking
+ instead—at least during the sermon?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane made a little grimace of horror.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You would then have whole burnt offerings dedicated with a devout and
+ cheerful heart.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “George, you are shockingly profane! I see it is no use urging you any
+ further; but I did think you would have put yourself to even some little
+ inconvenience for my sake.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “For your sake, Nell!” replied Mr. Haldane, laughing. “Why did you not say
+ so sooner? You know I would do anything on those terms. Have I not often
+ told you the married philosopher has but one moral law—to do his
+ wife’s will in all things.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then you will accompany me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Certainly I will.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are a dear, good old bear,” exclaimed Mrs. Haldane, slipping on to
+ the terrace and caressing his head with both hands. “But you know you <i>are</i>
+ a bear, and you will try for once to be nice and good-natured, will you
+ not? And you will not be cold and cynical with him because he is ideal and
+ enthusiastic? And if you do not acknowledge that he is a delightful
+ preacher, and that the dear little church is charming——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You will not ask me to go again?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I was going to say that, but it will be wiser to make no promises. You
+ know, dear, you should go to church, if it were only for the sake of
+ giving a good example; and it is my duty to try and persuade you to go.
+ And oh, George, seriously I do wish you could feel that it drew you nearer
+ to God; that where two or three are gathered together, He is in the midst
+ of them. Now, do not smile in that hard, derisive way. I know I cannot
+ argue with you, but if I cannot reply to your reasoning, you cannot
+ convince my heart. I do believe, in spite of all logic, that I have a
+ heavenly Father who loves and watches over me and you too, dear; and I
+ should be wretched——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My dear little woman,” said Mr. Haldane, taking both her hands in one of
+ his, “you have no cause to be wretched. I have no wish to deprive you of
+ your belief in a heavenly Father. With women the illusions of the heart
+ last longer than with men; and perhaps, in these days of change and
+ innovation, it is as well that women have still a creed to find comfort
+ in. For my part, I confess I hardly understand what it is attracts you in
+ your religion. The civilized world, so far as I can see, has outgrown the
+ golden age of worship, and <i>latria</i> is one of the lost arts.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The presence of the master of Foxglove Manor created considerable surprise
+ and curiosity among the congregation at St. Cuthbert’s. Though he had
+ lived in the neighbourhood for the last twelve years, this was the first
+ time he had been seen inside a church. Much more attention was paid during
+ the service to the beautiful lady of the Manor, and the grim, powerful man
+ who sat beside her, than was in keeping with the sacred character of the
+ occasion. Mr. Haldane, on his part, though he did his best by imitating
+ the example of his wife to conform to the ritual, was keenly critical of
+ the whole service. The dim religious light of the painted windows pleased
+ his eye, but failed to exercise any influence on his feelings. The
+ decorations of the church seemed to him insincere and artificial. He
+ missed in the atmosphere that sense of reverence which he had experienced
+ in the old cathedrals in Spain and Italy. The ceremonies appeared dry,
+ joyless, and uninteresting, and as he watched the congregation bowing,
+ kneeling, praying, singing, pageants of the jubilant mythic worship of the
+ ancient world crowded upon his imagination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What are you thinking of?” his wife once whispered, as she caught a
+ sidelong glance at his abstracted face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Diana at Ephesus!” he replied, with a curious twinkle in his keen gray
+ eyes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Once or twice during the sermon a saturnine smile passed across his face,
+ and Mrs. Haldane pressed his foot by way of warning; but otherwise he
+ listened gravely throughout, with his large, strongly marked features
+ turned to the preacher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, have you been interested, dear?” asked Mrs. Haldane, when the
+ service was over, and they were waiting in the churchyard for the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes,” he replied drily; “your vicar is interesting.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Now, what do you mean by that?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He will repay study, my dear.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane looked sharply into her husband’s face, but was dissatisfied
+ with her scrutiny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You don’t like him?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have no reason yet to like or dislike him. In a general way, I should
+ prefer to say that I do like him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But what do you mean by your remark that he will repay study?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Perhaps you will not understand me,” he answered thoughtfully. “Your
+ vicar has a soul, Nell.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “So have we all, I suppose.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “At least he believes he has one,” said Mr. Haldane, with a slight shrug
+ of his shoulders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And he is trying to save it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We all are, I hope.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I beg your pardon, Nell; the phenomenon in these days is a psychological
+ rarity, and, being rare, is naturally interesting. It is one of the
+ obscure problems of cerebration. Ah! here comes your vicar.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With a bright smile Mrs. Haldane advanced to meet him, and cordially shook
+ hands with him. “You must allow me to introduce you to my husband. George,
+ Mr. Santley.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My wife tells me,” said Mr. Haldane, as they shook hands, “that she was
+ an old pupil of yours.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes,” said the vicar, with an uneasy glance towards her, “many years
+ ago.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It is a little curious,” continued Mr. Haldane, “how people lose sight of
+ each other for years, and then are unexpectedly thrown together into the
+ same small social circle, after they have quite forgotten each others
+ existence.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar winced at the last words, but replied with a faint smile, “The
+ great world is, after all, a very little world.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ah, my dear sir, I see I have started a familiar train of thought—the
+ littleness of the world,” said Mr. Haldane, with a dry light in his eyes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you fear I may improve the occasion?” asked the vicar a little
+ coldly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Pray do not misunderstand my husband,” interposed Mrs. Haldane. “He was
+ delighted with your sermon to-day; and I do not wonder, for you have the
+ power of appealing to the heart and raising the mind beyond earthly
+ things. It was only a few moments ago that he told me he was deeply
+ interested.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I perceived that he was amused once or twice,” replied the vicar, with a
+ smile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I confess that I may have smiled at one or two points in your discourse.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Excuse my interrupting you,” said Mrs. Haldane; “will you not walk? You
+ can spare time to accompany us a little way?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Santley bowed, and Mrs. Haldane signed to the coachman to drive on
+ slowly towards the village.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “For example,” resumed Mr. Haldane, “I see you still stick to the old
+ chronology and the mythic Eden.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Certainly I do.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And yet you should be aware that at least a thousand years before the
+ date you fix for the creation of Adam, tribes of savage hunters and
+ fishers peopled the old fir-woods of Denmark, and set their nets in the
+ German Ocean.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It may eventually prove necessary to revise the chronology of the Bible,”
+ replied the vicar; “but there is at present too much conflict of opinion
+ among your archaeologists to decide on the absolute age of these tribes.
+ After all, the question is one of minor importance.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Granted. But you cannot say the same of the efficacy of prayer.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane laid her hand on her husband’s arm, and stopped abruptly.
+ “Ask Mr. Santley to dinner, George, and then you can discuss as long and
+ as profoundly as you like; but I will not allow you to argue now. Besides,
+ I want to talk to Mr. Santley.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane laughed good-naturedly. “Just as you please, my dear. If Mr.
+ Santley will favour us with his company, I shall be very glad. Your
+ predecessor was a frequent visitor at our house. A jovial, rubicund
+ fellow, whose troubles in this life were less of the world and the devil
+ than of the flesh! A fat, ponderous man and a Tory, as all fat men are; a
+ sort of Falstaff <i>in pontificalibus</i>; a man with a wit and a shrewd
+ palate for old port. Poor fellow! he was snuffed out like a candle. One
+ could have better spared a better man.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Will you come to-morrow?” asked Mrs. Haldane; “and, if your sister can
+ accompany you, will you bring her? You will excuse our informality and so
+ short a notice.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I shall be very happy to call tomorrow.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then, if you can spare me a few moments I will have a better opportunity
+ of speaking to you. I must learn all about the parish, and I have a whole
+ catechism of questions to ask you. You will come to-morrow, then?” she
+ concluded, with one of those flashing looks from her great dark eyes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He watched them drive away with that look burning in his brain and the
+ pressure of her hand tingling through every nerve. He stood gazing after
+ her with a passionate light in his eyes and an eager, yearning expression
+ on his pale, agitated face. This was the woman he had lost, and now they
+ were again thrown together in the same small social circle, after she had
+ completely forgotten his existence! Those words of her husband had cut him
+ to the quick. Could she so soon, so easily, so completely have forgotten
+ him? It seemed incredible. If she had used any such expression to her
+ husband, was it not rather to forestall any jealous suspicion on his part?
+ Clearly she had not divulged the secret of those schoolgirl days. <i>He</i>
+ knew not the story of that sweet, imperishable romance; those burning
+ kisses and unforgotten vows had been hidden from him; and in that
+ concealment the vicar found a strange, subtle pleasure. It was at least
+ one tie between him and her; one secret in common in which her husband had
+ no share.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER V. THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he vicar was
+ standing close beside the village school, and as he turned to go back home
+ he saw the schoolmistress in the doorway of her little cottage. He started
+ as though she had been looking into his heart, instead of watching the
+ carriage as it bowled along towards the village. Without a moment’s
+ hesitation, however, he opened the schoolyard gate and went up to her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, Miss Greatheart, how are you to-day?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dora, a bright, merry-looking woman of about thirty, dropped a curtsy, and
+ invited the vicar into the house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thank you, no; I must not stay. I have just been speaking, as you have
+ seen, to my new parishioners. I call them new, though I suppose they are
+ older in the parish than I am myself.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Old as they are, this is the first time I ever set eyes on Mr. Haldane in
+ our church, sir. His pretty wife must have converted him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then they have not been long married?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Somewhere about two years, I should think. All last year they were away
+ in Egypt and Palestine; and perhaps now that he’s seen the Land, he
+ believes in the Book.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Indeed!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Seeing’s believing, you know, sir; and if all tales be true, he used not
+ to believe in anything from the roof upward. Oh, you may well look
+ shocked, sir, but he was quite an atheist and an infidel; but you see he
+ was so rich that the gentry round about didn’t care to give him the go-by.
+ I suppose you haven’t been to the Manor yet, sir? The old vicar, Mr. Hart,
+ was always there. People did say he paid more court to the people at the
+ Manor than he should have done, considering the need for him in the
+ parish; and when Mr. Hart got his second stroke, there were those that
+ said it was a judgment on him for high living, and the company he kept.
+ But you know, sir, how folks’ tongues will wag.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Is the Manor far from here? Of course I have heard of the place, but I
+ have never been near it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It’s about four miles, sir, and a lonely place it is, and dismal it must
+ be in winter, with miles of wood about it. In summer it is not so bad, but
+ it is awfully wild and solitary. I went over the grounds once, years ago.
+ I became acquainted with one of the housemaids, you see, sir—quite a
+ nice young person—and she invited me to tea. I remember it was
+ getting dusk when I left, and she took me through the woods. Dear me, what
+ a fright I got! I happened to look up, and there was a man, quite a giant,
+ standing among the trees. I screamed, and would have run had not Jane—that
+ was the maid, sir—laughed, and said it was only a statue. And so it
+ was, for we went right up to it. All the woods are full of statues—quite
+ improper and rude, and rather frightening to meet in the dusk. But now he
+ is converted, Mrs. Haldane will have them all taken away, I should think.
+ I don’t believe the place is haunted, though there are some strange
+ stories told about it; but I do know that the chapel—there is an old
+ chapel close by the house—is shut up, and no one goes near it but
+ Mr. Haldane and his valet—a dark foreign person, with such eyes!
+ Queer tales are told about lights being seen in it at all hours of the
+ night, and some of the old folk believe that if any one could look in they
+ would see that the foreign valet had horns and a cloven foot, and that his
+ master was worshipping him. I think that’s all nonsense myself; but
+ there’s no doubt Mr. Haldane used to be dreadfully wicked, and an
+ atheist.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “If he was so very bad,” said the vicar, smiling, “surely it was strange
+ that Mr. Hart used to associate with him so much.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, you see, sir, he was always liberal, and kept a good table, and Mr.
+ Hart was a cheerful liver. Then Mr. Haldane was always ready with his
+ purse when there was a hard winter, or the crops were bad, or any poor
+ person was ill.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I see, I see,” said the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But his charity could not do him any good, people said, when he didn’t
+ believe there was a God, or that he had a soul.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “So they didn’t consider it worth while to be thankful?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I don’t think they did, sir.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And was Mrs. Haldane staying at the Manor the first year of their
+ marriage?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes; he brought her back with him after the honeymoon.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And do they speak as kindly of her in the village as they do of her
+ husband?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, indeed, sir, they worship her. Even old Mother Grimsoll, who said she
+ wanted to make a charity woman of her when you bought her that scarlet
+ cloak last winter, has a good word for Mrs. Haldane. She isn’t the least
+ bit conceited, and she knows that poor people have their proper pride; and
+ when she helps any one she makes them feel that they are doing her a
+ favour. When Mr. Hart was alive she used to go round with him, devising
+ and dispensing charities. It’s only a pity she is married to—to—“—and
+ Miss Greatheart beat impatiently on the ground with her foot in the effort
+ to recall the word—“to an agnostic. Mr. Hart said he wasn’t an
+ atheist, but an agnostic, though I dare say if the truth were known one is
+ worse than the other.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are not very charitable, Miss Greatheart; come, now, confess,” said
+ the vicar, good-humouredly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Perhaps not, sir; but I have no patience with atheists and agnostics.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “An atheist,” continued the vicar, “is a person who does not believe in a
+ God; an agnostic is one who merely says he does not know whether there is
+ a God or not.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Doesn’t know!” exclaimed Dora, indignantly. “Wherever was the man brought
+ up?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That evening, as Miss Santley and Edith went across from the church to the
+ Vicarage together, the vicar joined them, and Miss Dove remained to supper
+ as usual. The time passed pleasantly enough; but Edith was conscious of a
+ certain restraint, in the conversation, a curious chilliness in the
+ atmosphere. When at length she rose to go home, the vicar went to the
+ window, and looked out for a few seconds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I think, Mary, you might accompany us; and when we have seen Miss Edith
+ home, we could take a turn round together. It is a beautiful night.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mary nodded assent, and Edith felt her heart sink within her. She was
+ certain now that he was avoiding her. As she followed Miss Santley
+ upstairs to put on her things, a sudden thought flashed upon her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I shall be with you in a moment, Mary,” she said; “I have dropped my
+ handkerchief, I think.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She ran back to the parlour, and met the vicar face to face as he paced
+ the room.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She stood still, and looked at him silently for a moment. She had taken
+ him by surprise, and he too stood motionless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well,” he said at last, with a faint smile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you hate me, Charles?” she asked in a low, steady voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Hate you! Why should I hate you, my dear Edith? What should put such
+ thoughts——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have only a few seconds to speak to you,” Miss Dove continued hastily.
+ “Answer me truly and directly. You do not hate me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I shall never hate you, dear.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “‘Why do you avoid me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have I avoided you?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know you have. Why?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have not avoided you, Edith.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you still love me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know I do.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “As much as ever you did?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “As much as ever.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Can I see you to-morrow—alone?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know I am going to the Manor.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I know,” said Edith, with a slight tone of bitterness. “You will return
+ in the evening, I suppose? I shall wait for you on the road till nine
+ o’clock.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I may be detained, you know, Edith.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then I shall be practising in the church on Tuesday afternoon as usual.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Very well,” he assented.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Am I still to trust you, Charles?” she asked, raising her soft blue eyes
+ earnestly to his face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes?” She dwelt upon the word, still looking fondly up to him. He
+ understood her, and bent over and kissed her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You will try to return home tomorrow before nine? I have been miserable
+ all this week, and I have so much to say to you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will try to see you,” said the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I must run now; Mary will wonder what has kept me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great woods about Foxglove Manor were certainly lovely, and in the
+ winter, with the snow on their black branches, and snow on the fallen
+ leaves and the open spaces between the clumps of forestry, the place might
+ have seemed dreary and dismal; but on this July afternoon the vicar
+ experienced an indescribable sense of buoyancy and enlargement among these
+ vast tossing masses of foliage. Their incessant murmur filled the air with
+ an inarticulate music, which recalled to his memory the singing pines of
+ Theocritus and the voices of the firs of the Hebrew prophets. A spirit of
+ romance for ever haunts the woodland, as though the olden traditions of
+ dryad and sylvan maiden had not yet been wholly superseded by the more
+ accurate report of science. In the skirts of the great clusters of timber,
+ cattle were grazing in groups of white and red; in the open spaces of
+ pasture land between wood and wood, deer were visible among the patches of
+ bracken. In the depths of the forest ways he came upon the colossal
+ statues copied from the old masters; and at length, at a turn of the
+ shadowy road, he found himself in view of the mansion—an ancient,
+ square mass of brown sandstone, stained with weather and incrustations of
+ moss and lichens, and covered all along the southern exposure with a dense
+ growth of ivy. The grounds immediately in front were laid out in formal
+ plots for flowers and breadths of turf traversed by gravelled pathways. A
+ little withdrawn from the house stood the ruined chapel of which the
+ schoolmistress had spoken. The ivy had invaded it, and scaled every wall
+ to the very eaves, while patches of stonecrop and houseleek, which had
+ established themselves on the slated roof, gave it a singular aspect of
+ complete abandonment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Mr. Santley entered one of the walks which led to the terraced
+ entrance, Mrs. Haldane, who had observed his approach, appeared on the
+ stone steps, and descended to meet him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “How good of you to come so early!” she exclaimed. “George will be
+ delighted. He is in his laboratory, experimenting as usual. We shall join
+ him, after you have had some refreshment.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No refreshment for me, thank you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you quite sure? You must require something after so long a walk.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Nothing really, I assure you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, I shall not press you, as we shall have dinner soon. Shall we go to
+ Mr. Haldane? Have you visited the Manor before—not in our absence?
+ How do you like it?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I envy you your magnificent woods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes; are they not charming? And you will like the house, too, when you
+ have seen it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you not find it dull, however?” asked the vicar, looking into her face
+ with an expression of keen scrutiny. “You are still young—in the
+ blossom of your youth—and society must still have its attractions
+ for you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “One enjoys society all the more after a little seclusion.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No doubt.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And we have just returned, you must recollect, from a whole year of
+ wandering and sight-seeing, so that it is a positive relief to awaken
+ morning after morning and find the same peaceful landscape, the same quiet
+ woods about one.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “That is very natural; but the heart does not long remain content with the
+ unchanging face of nature, however beautiful it may be. Even the best and
+ strongest require sympathy, and when once we become conscious of that want——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have you begun to feel it?” she asked suddenly, as he paused.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I suppose it is the inevitable experience of a clergyman in a country
+ parish,” he replied, with a smile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, I suppose it is. So few can take an interest in your tastes, and
+ aspirations, and intellectual pleasures, and pursuits. Is not that so?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It may seem vanity to think so.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh no; I think not. The people you meet every day are mostly concerned in
+ their turnips or the wheat or their cattle, and their talk is the merest
+ village gossip. It must indeed be very depressing to listen day after day
+ to nothing but that. One has, of course, a refuge in books.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But books are not life. The daydreams of the library are a poor
+ substitute for the real action of a mans own heart and brain.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then one has also the great fields of natural science to explore. I think
+ you will find the work of my husband interesting, and if you could turn
+ your mind in the same direction, you would find in him inexhaustible
+ sympathy.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As she spoke, they reached the low-arched portal of the chapel. The thick
+ oaken door, studded with big iron nails, was open, and before them stood a
+ man who bowed profoundly to Mrs. Haldane, and then darted a swift,
+ penetrating glance at the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mr. Haldane is within, Baptisto?” she asked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, senora.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stood aside to allow them to pass, and as Mr. Santley entered he
+ regarded the man with an eye which photographed every feature of his dark
+ Spanish face. It was a face which, once seen, stamped itself in haunting
+ lineaments on the memory. A dusky olive complexion; a fierce, handsome
+ mouth and chin; a broad, intelligent forehead; short, crisp black hair
+ sprinkled with grey; a thin, black moustache, twisted and pointed at the
+ ends; and a pair of big, black, unfathomable eyes, filled with liquid
+ fire. It was the man’s eyes that arrested the attention first, gave
+ character not only to the face but to the man himself, and indeed served
+ to identify him. In the village, “the foreign gentleman with the eyes” was
+ the popular and sufficient description of Baptisto.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER VI. THE UNKNOWN GOD.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>s the vicar
+ entered the chapel, he stopped short, struck with astonishment at the
+ singular appearance of the interior.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sunlight streaming through the leaded diamond panes of the casements,
+ instead of falling on the familiar pews, flagged nave, and solemn walls,
+ shone with a startling effect on the heterogeneous contents of a museum
+ and laboratory. Along one side of the building were ranged several glass
+ cases containing collections of fossils, arctic and tropical shells,
+ antique implements of flint, stone, and bronze, and geological specimens.
+ The walls were decorated with savage curiosities—shields of skin,
+ carved clubs and paddles, spears and arrows tipped with flint or fishbone,
+ mats of grass, strings of wampum, and dresses of skins and feathers. On a
+ couple of small shelves grinned two rows of hideous crania, gathered as
+ ethnic types from all quarters of the barbarian world, and beside them lay
+ a plaster cast of a famous paleolithic skull. On the various stands and
+ tables in different parts of the room were retorts and crucibles, curious
+ tubes, glasses and flasks, electric jars and batteries, balances,
+ microscopes, prisms, strange instruments of brass and glass, and a
+ bewildering litter of odds and ends, for which only a student of science
+ could find a name or a use. At the further end of the room, under the
+ coloured east window, stood an escritoire covered with a confused mass of
+ paper, and beside it stood a small table piled with books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Mrs. Haldane and the vicar entered, the master of Foxglove Manor, who
+ had been writing, rose, laid down his pipe, buttoned his old velvet
+ shooting-jacket, and hastened forward to welcome his visitor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Baptisto gravely set a couple of chairs, and, at a sign from his master,
+ bowed profoundly, and retired to the further end of the apartment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you smoke, Mr. Santley?” Mr. Haldane asked, glancing at a box of new
+ clay pipes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No, thank you; but I do not dislike the smell of tobacco. I find,
+ however, that smoking disagrees with me—irritates instead of
+ soothing, as professors of the weed tell me it should do.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Touches the solar plexus, eh? Then beware of it! The value of the solar
+ system is often determined by the condition of the solar plexus.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “That does seem to be frequently the case,” replied Mr. Santley, smiling.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Invariably, my dear sir, as the ancients were well aware when they
+ formulated that comprehensive, but little comprehended, proverb of the
+ sound mind in the sound body. It is curious how frequently modern science
+ finds herself demonstrating the truth of the guesses of the old
+ philosophers!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I perceive you are devoted to science,” said Mr. Santley, waving his hand
+ towards the evidences of his host’s taste.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh yes, he is perpetually experimenting in some direction or other,” said
+ Mrs. Haldane, with a laugh. “I believe he and Baptisto would pass the
+ night here, boiling germs or mounting all manner of invisible little
+ monsters for the microscope, if I allowed them. You must know, Mr.
+ Santley, that Mr. Haldane is writing a <i>magnum opus</i>—‘The
+ History of Morals,’ I believe, is to be the title—and what with his
+ experiments and his chapters, he can scarcely find time to dine.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You have been happy in your subject,” said the vicar, turning to the
+ master of the Manor. “The history of morals must be an enthralling book. I
+ can scarcely imagine any subject affording larger scope for literary
+ genius than this of the development of that divine law written on the
+ heart of Adam. Why do you smile, may I ask?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Pardon me; I was not conscious that I did smile, except mentally. You
+ will excuse me, however, if I frankly say that I was smiling at your
+ conception of the genesis of morality. What you term the divine law
+ written on the heart of Adam represents to me a very advanced stage in the
+ development of the moral sense. We must begin far beyond Adam, my dear
+ sir, if we would arrive at a philosophic appreciation of the subject. We
+ must explore as far as possible into that misty and enigmatic period which
+ precedes historical record; approach as nearly as may be to the time when
+ in the savage, possibly semi-simian, brain of the earliest of our
+ predecessors experience had begun to reiterate her proofs that what was
+ good was to his personal advantage, and that what was bad entailed loss
+ and suffering. It has hitherto been the habit to believe that the
+ Decalogue was revealed from Sinai in thunder and lightning and clouds of
+ darkness. As a dramatic image or allegory only should that be accepted.
+ Clouds of darkness do indeed surround the genesis of the moral in man, and
+ the law has been revealed by the deadly lightnings of disease and war and
+ famine and misery, through unknown and innumerable generations. No divine
+ law was written on the heart of the first man, or society would not be
+ where it is to-day. No; unhappily, one might say, morality has been like
+ everything else human—like everything else, human or not,—like
+ the coloured flower to the plant, the gay plumage to the bird, a dearly
+ bought conquest, a painfully laboured evolution.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Once or twice during Mr. Haldane’s remarks, the vicar had raised his hand
+ in disclaimer, but waited till he had finished before speaking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I was about to protest,” he now said, “against several of your
+ expressions, but I fear controversy is of little good when the disputants
+ argue from different premises. I perceive that you have accepted a theory
+ of life which completely shuts out God from His creation.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Pardon me; like the old Greek, I can still raise an altar to the unknown
+ God.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “To a cold, remote, indifferent abstraction, then,” replied Mr. Santley,
+ impulsively; “to a God unknowing as unknown—a vague, unrealizable,
+ impersonal Power.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Impersonal, I grant you, and therefore more logical, even according to
+ human reason, than the huge, passionate anthropomorphism of Jew and
+ Christian. Consciousness and personality imply the notion of limits and
+ conditions; and which is the grander idea—a limited, conditioned
+ Power, however great, or, an absolute transcendent Godhead, free from all
+ the limits which govern our finite being? God cannot be conscious as we
+ understand consciousness, nor personal as we understand personality-If He
+ were, then indeed we might well believe that we were made after His image
+ and likeness.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And can you find comfort in such a creed? Can you turn for strength, or
+ grace, or consolation to such a power as you describe?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why should I?” asked Mr. Haldane, smiling. “If I need any of these
+ things, my need is the result of some law violated or unobserved. The
+ world is ruled by law, and every breach of law entails an inescapable
+ penalty. If I suffer I must endure.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “That is cold comfort for all the sum of misery in the world.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It is the only true comfort. The rest is delusion. Preach that every
+ violated law avenges itself, not in some half mythical hell at the close
+ of a life that seems illimitable—for men never do realize that they
+ will one day die—but avenges itself here and now; preach that no
+ crucified Redeemer can interfere between the violator of the law and its
+ penalty; preach that if men sin they will infallibly suffer, and you will
+ really do something to regenerate mankind. Christianity, with its
+ doctrines of atonement and vicarious suffering and redemption, has done as
+ much to fill the world with vice, crime, and disease as the most degraded,
+ creed of pagan or savage. The groaning and travail of creation are clamant
+ proofs that vicarious suffering and redemption are the veriest dreams.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Either purposely or inadvertently you mix up the physical and the moral
+ law,” interposed the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The physical and the moral are but one law, articles of the one universal
+ code of nature.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “True,” said the vicar. “I forgot that you denied man his immortal soul,
+ as you deny him his divine sonship. And so you are content to believe that
+ man is born to live, labour, suffer, and perish.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Concede that God is content that such should be man’s destiny,” replied
+ Mr. Haldane, “what then?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What then?” echoed the vicar, rising from his chair with flashing eyes
+ and agitated face; “why, then life is a fiendish mockery!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane’s face wore a grim smile as he heard the bitter emphasis of
+ the vicar’s reply.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ah, my worthy friend,” he said, “you illustrate how necessary it is that
+ when one has his hand full of truth he should only open it one finger at a
+ time. If you revolt thus angrily against the new gospel, what can be
+ expected from the ignorant and the vicious? The meaning and purpose of
+ life does not depend on whether the individual man shall perish or shall
+ be immortal. If perish he must, he may at least perish heroically.
+ Annihilation or immortality does not affect the validity of religion,
+ whose paramount aim is not to prepare for another world, but to make the
+ best of this—to realize its ideal greatness and nobility. If life
+ should suddenly appear a mockery, contrast the present with that remote
+ past of the naked savage of the stone age, or the brutal condition of his
+ more remote sylvan ancestor, learning to walk erect and to articulate; and
+ then summon up a vision of the possible future, when superstition shall
+ have ceased to embitter man’s life, when a knowledge of natural law shall
+ have made men virtuous, when disease shall have vanished from the world,
+ and the nations shall, in a golden age of peace and perfected arts, have
+ learnt the method of a patriarchal longevity. Millions of individuals have
+ wept and toiled and perished to secure for us the present; we and millions
+ shall weep and toil and perish to secure the future for them.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And that you take to be the significance of life, the progress of the
+ race?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And is not that at least as noble a significance as a heaven peopled with
+ the penitent thief, the drunkard, the gallow’s-bird, the harlot, the
+ thousand bestial types of humanity redeemed by vicarious agony—the
+ thousand brutes of civilization who, in this age, are not fit for life
+ even on this earth, to say nothing of an enlarged immortality?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But with ever-rising grades of immortality before them, even those
+ bestial types might ascend to a perfect manhood, and shall they perish?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have they not been ascending ever since the Miocene?” asked Mr. Haldane,
+ with a scornful laugh. “However, it is little use discussing the matter.
+ As you have said, we cannot agree upon first principles. Let me show you,
+ instead, some of my curiosities. Did you ever see the Mentone skull? Here
+ is a plaster cast of it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And do you accept this dark and comfortless creed of your husband?” asked
+ Mr. Santley, turning to Mrs. Haldane as he took the cast in his hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh no,” she replied, raising her soft dark eyes to him earnestly; “the
+ progress of humanity does not satisfy me as an explanation of the enigma
+ of life in man or woman. I cannot abandon my old faith and trust in the
+ God-Man for an unknown power who does not care for my suffering and cannot
+ hear my prayers. What to me can such a god be? And what can life be but a
+ mockery if my soul, with its yearnings and aspirations and ideals, ceases
+ to exist after death—has no other world but this, in which I know
+ its infinite wants can never be satisfied?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar’s face brightened, and his heart beat with a strange, impulsive
+ ardour as he listened to her. Why had this woman, whose enthusiasm and
+ sympathy might have enabled him to realize his own high ideal of the
+ spiritual, been denied him? What evil destiny had bound her for ever to a
+ man whose paralyzing creed must make a perpetual division between them—a
+ man who could look into her sweet face and yet think of her as merely a
+ beautiful animal; who could fold her in his arms, and yet tranquilly
+ accept the teaching that at death that pure, radiant soul of hers would be
+ for ever extinguished? These thoughts and feelings went through the vicars
+ consciousness swiftly as sunshine and shadow over a landscape.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His eyes dropped on the plaster cast in his hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “This is very old?” he asked musingly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “One of the oldest skulls in the world,” replied Mr. Haldane. “It was
+ discovered by Dr. Rivière in a cave at Mentone, in a cliff overlooking the
+ sea. The man belonged to the ancient stone age, and was contemporary with
+ the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros of the Post-pliocene. The cave was a
+ place of burial, and on the head of the skeleton was a thickly plaited
+ network of sea-shells, with a fringe of deers’ teeth around the edge; the
+ limbs were adorned with bracelets and anklets of shells also; and in front
+ of the face was placed a little oxide of iron, used as war-paint, no
+ doubt.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Even in the Post-pliocene, then,” said the vicar, “it would appear that
+ man believed in a hereafter.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ah, yes; it is an antique superstition, and even yet we have not outgrown
+ it-Human progress is slow.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And this face was raised to the blue sky ages ago, looking for God!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane shrugged his shoulders, and smiled grimly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “How is it possible that you, who-must share the weaknesses and sorrows of
+ the human heart, can so stoically accept the horrible prospect of
+ annihilation?” asked the vicar, half angrily.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I accept truths. Do you imagine I prefer annihilation? I could wish that
+ life were ordered otherwise, but wishing’ cannot change an eternal system.
+ Immortality cannot be achieved by defying’ annihilation.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have you realized death?” exclaimed the vicar, passionately. “Can you,
+ dare you, look forward to a time when, say, your wife shall lie cold and
+ lifeless,—and hold to the doctrine that you have lost her for ever,
+ that never again shall your spirit mingle with hers, that you and she are
+ for all eternity divorced?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You appeal to the passions, and not to the reason,” replied Mr. Haldane,
+ coldly. “What holds good for the beast which perishes, holds good for all
+ of us, and will hold good for those who come after us, and who will be
+ greater and nobler than we.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Be it so,” replied the vicar, in an undertone. As he spoke he bit his
+ lip, and his cheek coloured. The thought was not meant for utterance, but
+ it slipped into words before he was aware. For the full significance of
+ that thought was a singular exemplification of the conflicting spiritual
+ and animal natures of the man. That divorce of death which had been
+ pronounced inevitable opened before him, in a dreamy vista of the future,
+ a new world of ecstatic beatitude, where his soul and the radiant spirit
+ of the woman who stood beside him should be mingled together in
+ indissoluble communion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER VII. CELESTIAL AFFINITIES.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>hortly afterwards
+ Mrs. Haldane suggested that they should take a turn about the grounds,
+ instead of wasting the sunshine indoors. As they left the chapel the vicar
+ paused and looked back at the ivy-draped building, with its half-hidden
+ lancets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You have turned a sacred edifice to a strange use,” he said. “Here,
+ within the walls where past generations have dwelt and worshipped, you
+ have set up your apparatus for the destruction of man’s holiest heritage.
+ Pardon me if I speak warmly, but to me this appears to be sacrilege.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The Church has always been intolerant of science and research,” replied
+ Mr. Haldane, good-humouredly, “and it is the fortune of conflict if
+ sometimes we are able to make reprisals. But, seriously, I see no
+ desecration here.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No desecration in converting Gods house into a laboratory to analyze soul
+ and spirit into function and force!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No desecration,” should say, “in converting the shrine of a narrow,
+ selfish superstition into a schoolroom where one may learn a truer and a
+ grander theology, and a less presumptuous and illusive theory of life. It
+ is, however, impossible for us to be at one on these matters; let us at
+ least agree to differ amicably. Your predecessor and I found much of
+ common interest. He was of the old school, but life had taught him a
+ kindly tolerance of opinion. To you, as I gleaned from your sermon
+ yesterday, the new philosophy and modern criticism are familiar. You must
+ surely concede that the old theological ground must be immeasurably
+ widened, if you are still resolved to occupy it. Why should you fear
+ truth, if God has indeed revealed Himself to the Church?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The Church does not fear truth,” replied the vicar; “but she does fear
+ the wild speculations and guesses at truth which unsettle the faith of the
+ world. For myself I have looked into some of these fantastic theories of
+ science, and I repudiate them as at once blasphemous and hopeless. It is
+ easy to destroy the old trust in the beneficence of Providence, in the
+ redemption and destiny of man; but when you have accomplished that, you
+ can go no further. Tyndall proves to you that all life in the world is the
+ outcome of antecedent life; Haeckel contends that science must in the long
+ run accept spontaneous generation. Your leading men are at loggerheads;
+ and it signifies little which is right, for in either case the <i>causa
+ causans</i> is only removed one link further back in the chain of
+ causation. Some of you hold that there is only matter and force in the
+ universe, but on others it is beginning to dawn that possibly matter and
+ force are in the ultimate one and the same. And again, it signifies little
+ which is right, for both, being conditioned, must have had a beginning. A
+ God, a creative Power, is needed in the long run—‘a power behind
+ humanity, and behind all other things,’ as Herbert Spencer describes it; a
+ God of whom science can predicate nothing, of whom science declares it to
+ be beyond her province to speak, but of whom every heart is at some time
+ vividly conscious and has been from the beginning—demonstrably from
+ the Paleolithic period until now.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, Mr. Santley, I am so pleased you have said that. I have often wished
+ that I were able to answer my husband, but I have no power of argument,”
+ said Mrs. Haldane, looking gratefully at the vicar. “You must not think he
+ is not a good, a real practical Christian, in spite of his opinions.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane laughed quietly as his wife slipped her hand into his.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “As to the God of the Paleolithic man, Mr. Santley forgets that it was at
+ best a personification of some of the great natural powers—wind;
+ rain, thunder, sunshine, and moonlight; and as to Christianity, my dear,
+ there is much in the teaching of Christ, and even of the Church, which I
+ reverence and hold sacred. Morality, and the consequent civilization of
+ the world, owes more to Christianity than to any other creed. It has done
+ much evil, but I think it has done more good. Purified from its mythic
+ delusions, it has still a splendid future before it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And <i>à propos</i> of practical Christianity, Mr. Santley,” continued
+ Mrs. Haldane, “I want to talk to you about the parish. I am eager to begin
+ with my poor people again; and, by-the-bye, the children have, I
+ understand, had no school treat yet this year. Now, sit down here and tell
+ me all about your sick, in the first place.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane stood listening to the woes and illnesses of the village for a
+ few minutes, and then left them together in deep discussions over flannels
+ and medicines and nourishing food. Dinner passed pleasantly enough. The
+ vicar had satisfied his conscience by protesting against the desecration
+ of the chapel and the disastrous results of scientific research. Clearly
+ it was useless, and worse than useless, to contend with this
+ large-natured, clear-headed unbeliever. It was infinitely more agreeable
+ to feel the soft dark light of Mrs. Haldane’s eyes dwelling on his face,
+ and to listen to the music of her voice as she told him of their travels
+ abroad. In his imagination the scenes she described rose before him, and
+ he and she were the central figures in the clear, new landscape. He
+ thought of their walks on the cliffs and on the sea-shore, in the golden
+ days that had gone by. How easily it might have been!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sun had gone down when he parted from his host and hostess at the
+ great gate at the end of the avenue. He had declined their offer to drive
+ him over to Omberley. He preferred walking in the cool of the evening, and
+ the distance was, he professed, not at all too great. As he shook hands
+ with her, that wild, etherial fancy of a world to come, in which her
+ husband would have no claim to her, brightened his eyes and flushed his
+ cheek. There was a strange nervous pressure in the touch of his hand, and
+ an expression of surprise started into her face. He noticed it at once,
+ and was warned. Mr. Haldane’s farewell was bluffly cordial, and he warmly
+ pressed the vicar to call on them at any time that best suited his
+ convenience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They were pretty sure to be always at home, and they were not likely to
+ have too much company.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As he walked along the high-road, bordered on one side with the green
+ murmuring masses of foliage, and on the other with waving breadths of
+ corn, his mind was absorbed in that new dream of transcendent love. There
+ was nothing earthly or gross in this dawning glow of spiritual passion;
+ indeed, it raised him in delicious exaltation beyond the coarseness of the
+ physical, till, as it suddenly occurred to him that somewhere on his way
+ Edith was waiting for him, his heart rose in revulsion at the recollection
+ of her. At the same time there was a large element of the sensuous beauty
+ of transient humanity in that celestial forecast. The pure, radiant spirit
+ of the woman he loved still wore the sweet lineaments of her earthly
+ loveliness. Death had not destroyed that magical face; those dark,
+ luminous, loving eyes; that sweet shape of womanhood. The spiritual body
+ was cast in the mould of the physical, and the chief difference lay in a
+ shining mistiness of colour, which floated in a sort of elusive drapery
+ about the glorified woman, and replaced the worldly silks and satins of
+ the living wife. This spiritual being was no intangible abstraction, of
+ which only the intellect could take cognizance. As in its temporal
+ condition, it could still kiss and thrill with a touch. Clearly, however
+ unconscious he might be of the fact, the vicar’s conception of the divine
+ was intensely human, and his spiritual idealizations were the immediate
+ growth and delicate blossom of the senses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great stillness was growing over the land as he pursued his way. The
+ woodlands had been left behind him, and their incessant murmur was now
+ inaudible. Sleep and quietude had fallen on the level fields; not an ear
+ of wheat stirred, no leaf rustled. The birds had all gone to nest, except
+ a solitary string of belated crows, flying low down in black dots, against
+ the distant silvery green horizon. The moon was rising through a low-lying
+ haze, which had begun to spread over the landscape. The vicar looked at
+ his watch. It was after nine o’clock. He began to hope that Edith had
+ grown tired of waiting for him, and had returned home. He had a sickening
+ feeling of repugnance and vague dread of meeting her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Little more than a month after Mr. Santley had settled in Omberley, Miss
+ Dove had come to live with her aunt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Her father and mother had died within a year of each other, and the girl
+ gladly accepted the offer of Mrs. Russell to consider her house as a home
+ until she had had time to look about her. Edith had been left sufficiently
+ well provided for, and her aunt, the widow of a banker, was in a position
+ of independence, so that the disinterested offer was accepted without any
+ sense of dependence or humiliation. The bright, innocent face of the girl
+ instantly caught the eye of the vicar. He saw her frequently at her aunt’s
+ house, and gradually learned to esteem, not only her excellent qualities,
+ but to find a use for her accomplishments. She was especially fond of
+ music, and when the vicar suggested that she might add to the beauty of
+ the service at St. Cuthbert’s by interesting herself in the choir and
+ presiding at the organ, she eagerly acquiesced. The church was one of
+ Edith’s favourite haunts; and when the vicar, who was himself a lover of
+ music, heard the soul-stirring vibrations of some masterpiece of the great
+ composers, his steps were drawn by an easily explicable fatality to the
+ side of the pretty performer. Still, it was a fatality. Slowly, and
+ imperceptibly at first, the sense of pleasure at meeting grew up between
+ the two; then swiftly and imperceptibly they found that there was
+ something in the presence of each other that satisfied a vague,
+ indefinable craving; and lastly, with a sudden access of
+ self-consciousness, they looked into each other’s eyes, and each became
+ gladly and tremulously aware of the other’s love. Edith was still young,
+ almost too young yet to assume the station of the wife of the spiritual
+ head of the parish; and Mr. Santley was not sure as to the manner in which
+ his sister would receive the intimation that there was, even in the remote
+ future, to be a new mistress brought to the Vicarage. The girl was,
+ however, still too happy in the knowledge that she was beloved to look
+ forward to marriage. With a strange, feminine inconsistency, she regarded
+ their union with a certain dread and shamefacedness. It seemed such a
+ dreadful exposure that all the village should know that they loved each
+ other. “Oh no, no; it must not be for a long, long time yet!” she once
+ exclaimed nervously. “Is it not sufficient happiness to know that I am
+ yours and you are mine? I cannot bear to think that every one must know
+ our secret.” To have those long, pleasant chats under cover of the music;
+ to be invited to the Vicarage, and to sit and talk with him there; to
+ receive those haphazard glances, as it were, while he was preaching; to be
+ escorted home by him in the evening when it was dark, and no one could see
+ that her hand was on his arm; to receive those almost stolen kisses; to
+ feel his arm about her waist what more could maiden desire to dream over
+ for weeks and months—for years, if need were?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith was endowed with the intense feminine faith and fervid ideality of
+ the worshipper. To sit at her lover’s feet and to look up adoringly to
+ him, was at once her favourite mental and physical attitude. On her side,
+ she exercised a curious spiritual influence over him. There was such an
+ aerial brightness and lightness about her, such sweet fragile loveliness
+ in her form and figure, such tender abandonment of self in her
+ disposition, that he felt he had not only a woman to love, but a beautiful
+ childlike soul to keep unspotted from the world, to guide through the dark
+ ways of life to the arms of the great loving Fatherhood of God. The
+ presence of Edith helped him to banish the dark doubts and evil promptings
+ of the spirit of unbelief. When she spoke to him of her spiritual
+ experiences, he felt joyous ascensions of the heart which raised him
+ nearer to heaven. She created in him the unspeakable holy longings and
+ vague wants that give the lives of the mystic saints of Roman Catholicism
+ so singular a blending of divine illumination and voluptuous colour.
+ Unconsciously the vicar was realizing in his own nature Swedenborg’s
+ doctrine of celestial affinities. This love restored to him the innocence
+ and ardour of the days of Eden; he had found at once his Eve and his
+ Paradise, and he felt that, as of old, God still walked in the garden in
+ the cool of the day. Some such glamour surrounds the first developments of
+ every sincere attachment. It is the first rosy tingling flush of dawn, dim
+ and sweet and dreamy, and, like the dawn, it glows and brightens into the
+ fierce clear heat of broad day, burning the dew from the petal and
+ withering the blossom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Mr. Santley’s thoughts turned to Edith, the recollection of these
+ things came vividly upon him. Only a week ago, and she was the one woman
+ in the world he believed he could have chosen for his wife. In an instant,
+ at the sight of a face, all had been changed. His love had become a
+ burthen, a shame, a dread to him. Edith had grown hateful to him. At the
+ same time, he could not deaden the sting of remorse as he reflected on his
+ broken vows. The passionate protestations he had uttered sounded again in
+ his ears in accents of bitter mockery; the pledges he had given seemed now
+ to him hideous blasphemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At a bend of the road he suddenly came in sight of a figure moving before
+ him in the dusk. He knew at a glance it was she, and he prepared himself
+ for the meeting. Although he earnestly wished to disembarrass himself of
+ her, he found himself unable to do so at once and brutally. He would try
+ to estrange her, and free himself little by little.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As they approached each other he saw that Edith’s face was grave and sad.
+ She was trying to learn from his look in what manner she ought to speak to
+ him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His assurances on the previous evening had not tranquillized her, and she
+ had still a terrible misgiving that a chasm was widening between them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar was the first to speak.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am a little later than I expected,” he said, as he held out his hand to
+ her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It does not signify <i>now</i>. I was only afraid that you might be so
+ late I should have to go home without seeing you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He made no reply, and they walked on side by side in silence for a few
+ seconds. At last she stopped abruptly and looked at him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Charles,” she said, “you know what you said to me last night?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Was it true?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why should you ask such a question? Why should you doubt its truth?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I try not to doubt it, but I cannot help it. Oh, tell me again that you
+ do not hate and contemn me! Tell me you still love me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My dear Edith,” replied the vicar, laying his hand on her arm, “you are
+ not well. You have been overtaxing your strength and exciting yourself.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith did not answer, but the tears rose to her eyes and began to run down
+ her cheeks. She did not sob or make any sound of weeping, but her hand was
+ pressed against her throat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Come, don’t cry like that; you know I cannot bear to see you cry.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stopped as he spoke, and took her hand in his. They stood still a
+ little while, and she at length was able to speak.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you remember,” she asked in a low, broken voice, “that I once told you
+ you were my conscience?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He regarded her uneasily before he replied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes; you once said that, I know. But why return to that now?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And have you not been?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was silent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Your word,” she continued, “has been my law; what you have said I have
+ believed. Have I done wrong?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why are you letting these things trouble you now?” he asked impatiently.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Because I know that when a woman gives herself wholly to the man she
+ loves, it is common for her to lose him, and I have begun to feel that I
+ am losing you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I do not think I have given you any reason to feel that.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She did not speak again immediately, but stood with her innocent blue eyes
+ raised beseechingly to his face. Suddenly she took hold of his hands, and
+ said—
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You told me that in the eyes of God we were man and wife, that no
+ marriage ceremony could ever join us together more truly, that marriage
+ really consisted in the union of heart and soul, not in the words of any
+ priest—did you not? Was that true? Am I still your little wife?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He hesitated. The blood had vanished from his cheek, leaving it haggard
+ and pale; she felt his hands trembling in hers. Then, with a sudden
+ impulse, he took her face between his hands and drew her towards him, as
+ he answered—
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are, darling. I will not do you any wrong.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER VIII. A SICK-CALL.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Santley’s reply
+ was as sincere at the moment it was spoken as it was impulsive. The saner
+ and better part of him rose in sudden sympathy towards this young,
+ confiding girl who had laid her whole being in his hands, to be his
+ treasure or his plaything. He resolved to be faithful to the solemn pledge
+ he had given her, and to cast from him for ever all thought of Mrs.
+ Haldane, and all memory of that passionate episode of the past. He drew
+ Edith’s hand under his arm and held it there. That warm little bit of
+ responsive flesh and blood had still, he felt, a power to thrill through
+ his nature. He bent down and kissed it. For some time their conversation
+ was embarrassed, but gradually all sense of doubt and estrangement
+ vanished, and he was telling her about his visit to the Manor. A pressure
+ was laid upon him to make her such amends as he was able for his coldness
+ during the past week, and he determined to break the spell which Mrs.
+ Haldane’s beauty threw over him by revealing their old friendship to
+ Edith. It was not wise, but under the stress of remorse and a reviving
+ passion men seldom act wisely. Except in the case of a jealous
+ disposition, a woman is always pleased to hear of her lover’s old vaguely
+ cherished love affairs, when there is no possibility of their ever coming
+ to life again. She knows instinctively, even when she is not told so
+ adoringly, that she supersedes all her predecessors and combines all their
+ virtues and charms. He loved this one for her beauty and sweetness, that
+ one for her clear bright intelligence; each in a different way; but her he
+ loves in both the old ways, and in a new way also which she alone could
+ inspire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mrs. Haldane was an old pupil of mine—indeed, a favourite pupil—many
+ years ago; so, naturally, I am much interested in her,” said the vicar in
+ a tentative manner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The words were a revelation to Edith; they explained to her all her
+ uneasiness and all his change of manner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you find that you still love her a little?” Edith ventured to say in
+ a sad, faltering tone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I never said I loved her, my dear,” replied the vicar, with a forced
+ laugh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But you did, did you not? She was your favourite pupil.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How uncomfortably keen-sighted this young person seemed to be, in spite of
+ her soft, endearing ways!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Would you be a little jealous if I said I did?” he asked, regarding her
+ with a scrutinizing look.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Jealous! Oh no. Why should I? Is she not married? And am I not really and
+ truly your little wife?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He pressed her hand gently for answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And when you saw her again last Sunday, and saw how beautiful she was,”
+ Edith continued, “you felt sorry that you had lost her—just a little
+ regretful, did you not?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar hesitated, and then did the most foolish thing a man can do in
+ such circumstances—confessed the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You will not be vexed, darling, if I say that I did feel regret?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You loved her very much?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “She was my first love.” replied the vicar. “But you must remember it was
+ years ago. Long before I knew you; when I was quite a young man.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And was she very fond of you?” Edith went on quietly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I used to think she was.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But she was not true to you?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I do not blame her. I do not think it was her fault. Her people were
+ wealthy, and I was poor, a poor teacher.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And it was this made you so cold and hard to me all last week?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Santley did not answer at once.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would be brutal to say yes, and he dared not hazard a denial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, Charles, she never loved you as I have.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Never, never,” replied the vicar hurriedly; and a flush rose to his face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “When you meet her, when you see her again,” said Edith, grasping his arm
+ with earnest emphasis, “will you remember that? Promise me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will never forget it,” said the vicar in a low voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not see Mrs. Haldane again, however, during the week. On the
+ following Sunday his eyes wandered only for a moment towards the Manor
+ pew, and he perceived that she was alone. When he met her after the
+ service his manner was constrained, but she appeared not to notice it. She
+ spoke again of the parish work, and told him that in a day or two she
+ would drive over and accompany him on some of his calls. He looked forward
+ with uneasiness and self-distrust to her cooperation in his daily work.
+ There was an irresistible something, a magical atmosphere, an invisible
+ radiation of the enticing about this woman. Her large glowing black eyes
+ seemed to fasten upon his soul and draw it beyond his control. Her starry
+ smile intoxicated and maddened him. Beside her, Edith was but a weak,
+ delicate child, with a child’s clinging attachment, a child’s credulity
+ and trust, a child’s little gusts of passion. His lost love was a woman—such
+ a woman as men in old times would have perished for as a queen, would have
+ worshipped as a goddess—such a woman, he fancied, as that Naomi
+ whose beauty has been the mysterious tradition of five thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Early one afternoon, about the middle of the week, the vicar was just
+ about to set out on his customary round of visitation, when Mrs. Haldane’s
+ pony-carriage drove up to the gate. He assisted her to alight, and
+ returned with her to the house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Santley, who had been as sensitive to the change in her brother as
+ Edith herself, regarded Mrs. Haldane with little favour. She was ready to
+ acknowledge that it was very good and kind of the mistress of Foxglove
+ Manor to interest herself in the wants and suffering of the parish, but
+ she entertained grave misgivings as to the prudence of her brother and
+ this old pupil of his being thrown too frequently together. She was just a
+ little formal and reserved with her visitor, who announced her intention
+ of going with the vicar to this sick-call he had spoken of.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You will have to walk, however,” said Mr. Santley, “as the cottage is
+ some little distance across the fields.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I came prepared for walking,” she replied, with a laugh. “James can put
+ up at the village till our return.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Will you do us the favour of taking tea with us?” asked Miss Santley,
+ “You will, require it, if my brother takes you his usual round.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thank you, I shall be very glad. If James calls for me at—what time
+ shall I say?—six, will that be soon enough?” The coachman received
+ his instructions, and Mr. Santley and Mrs. Haldane set out on their first
+ combined mission. They traversed half a dozen fields, and came in sight of
+ a small cluster of cottages lying low in a green hollow. A narrow lane ran
+ past them to Omberley in one direction and to the high-road in another.
+ Half a dozen poplars grew in a line along the lane, and the cottages were
+ surrounded by small gardens, filled with fruit trees.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What a picturesque little spot!” exclaimed Mrs. Haldane. “I think nothing
+ looks so pretty as an English cottage with its white walls and tiled roof
+ peering out from a cluster of apple; and pear trees.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Pretty enough, but damp!” replied the vicar. “In wet weather they are in
+ a perfect quagmire. Ah, listen!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They were now very near the houses, and the sound to which Mr. Santley
+ called her attention was the voice of a man crying out in great pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What can it be?” asked Mrs. Haldane, with a look of alarm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It is the poor fellow we are going to see. He was knocked down and run
+ over by a cart about two years ago. His spine has been injured, and the
+ doctors can do nothing for him. He is quite helpless, and has been
+ bedridden all that time.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Poor creature! what a dreadful thing it must be to suffer like that!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Sometimes for weeks together he feels no pain. Then he is suddenly seized
+ by the most fearful torture, and you can hear his cries for a great
+ distance.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As they approached the cottage the man’s voice grew louder, and they could
+ distinguish his words: “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me what to
+ do?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane shuddered. In that green, peaceful, picturesque spot that
+ persistent reiteration of the man’s agony was horrible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Will you come in?” asked the vicar doubtfully.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His companion signed her assent, and Mr. Santley knocked gently at the
+ door. In a few seconds some one was heard coming down the staircase, and a
+ little gray-haired, gray-faced woman, dressed in black, came to the door
+ and curtsied to her visitors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mansfield is very bad again to-day?” said the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ay, this be one of his bad days, sir. He have been that bad since Sunday,
+ I haven’t known what to do with him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The voice of the sick man suddenly ceased, and he appeared to be
+ listening.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Who’s there?” he shrieked out, after a pause. “Jennie; blast you! who’s
+ there?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He be raving mad, ma’am!” said Mrs. Mansfield, apologetically. “He don’t
+ know what he is saying.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Jennie, you damned little varmint——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Hush, John, it be the parson!” his wife called up the staircase.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “To hell with the parson! Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me what to
+ do?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I’ll go up to him, sir, and tell him you’re here. He be very bad to-day,
+ poor soul! Will it please you to walk in, ma’am?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The little woman went upstairs, and her entrance to the sick-room was
+ greeted with a volley of foul curses screamed out in furious rage.
+ Gradually, however, the access of passion was exhausted, and the man was
+ again heard repeating his hopeless appeal for relief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “How do they live?” asked Mrs. Haldane, glancing about the small but
+ scrupulously clean room in which she stood. “Have they any grown-up
+ children?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No, only their two selves. She is the bread-winner. She does knitting and
+ sewing, and the neighbours, who are very kind to her, assist her with her
+ garden and do her many little kindnesses.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Poor woman! And she has endured this horrible infliction for two years!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “If you please, sir, you can come up now,” said Mrs. Mansfield from the
+ top of the stairs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar went up, and Mrs. Haldane followed him. They entered a pretty
+ large whitewashed bedroom, with raftered roof and a four-post bedstead in
+ the centre of the room. Though meagrely furnished, everything was
+ spotlessly clean and tidy. On the bed lay a great gaunt man, panting and
+ moaning, with his large filmy blue eyes turned up to the roof. He was far
+ above the common stature, and his huge wasted frame, only half hidden by
+ the bedclothes, was piteous to look at. His large venerable head, covered
+ with thin, long white hair, filled one with surprise and regretful
+ admiration. His face was thin and colourless, and a fringe of white beard
+ gave it a still more deathly appearance. One could scarcely believe that
+ the wreck before him was a common labourer. It seemed rather such a
+ spectacle as Beatrice Cenci might have looked on had her father died
+ cursing on his bed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Here’s parson come to see thee, and a lady wi’ him,” said Mrs. Mansfield,
+ raising her husband’s head.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He looked at them with his glazed blue eyes, made prominent with pain, and
+ his moaning grew louder, till they could again distinguish the constant
+ cry for release from pain: “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me what
+ to do?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Try to think of God, and pray to Him for help,” said the vicar, bending
+ over the suffering man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, I have prayed and prayed and prayed,” he replied querulously; “but it
+ does no good.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He were praying all day yesterday and singing hymns,” said Mrs.
+ Mans-held. “I don’t know what’s gotten hold of him to-day, but he have
+ been dreadful. And he were ever such a pious, God-fearing man. It fair
+ breaks my heart to hear him swearing like that. But God will not count it
+ against him, for he’s been clean beside himself.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, let me hear you pray now, Mansfield,” said the vicar. “Turn your
+ heart and your mind to God, and He will comfort you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “O God,” said the sick man, with the obedient simplicity of a child, “I
+ turn my heart and my mind to Thee; do Thou comfort me and take me to
+ Thyself. O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of mankind, do Thou
+ remember me in Thy paradise. Look down upon me, O Lord, a miserable
+ offender, and spare Thou them which confess their faults and are truly
+ penitent.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With a strange light on his white, wasted face, with his gaunt hands
+ folded on the counterpane before him, the old man sat up in bed and prayed
+ in the same loud voice of pain and semi-delirium. A wild, inconceivable,
+ interminable prayer; for long after they had left the house, old Mansfield
+ could be heard some hundreds of yards away, screaming to God for mercy and
+ consolation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We had better leave him praying,” said the vicar softly; “and when he
+ begins cursing and swearing again, Mrs. Mansfield, just kneel down and
+ pray in a loud voice beside him. It will suggest a new current to his
+ thoughts.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “God won’t count his cursing against him, sir, will he?” asked the little
+ woman. “He were ever a sober Christian man till this misery came on him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No, no,” said the vicar; “God judges the heart, not the tongue of
+ delirium.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “How old is your husband?” inquired Mrs. Haldane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He be eighty-one come Martinmas, ma’am.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Poor old man! And you do sewing and knitting, do you not?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, ma’am, what he lets me do. He be main fractious whiles.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And have you plenty to go on with at present?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have what’ll keep me busy for a fortnight yet.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will see you again before then. I hope your husband will soon be
+ better.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “There be no hope of that, ma’am. The only betterness for him ‘ll be when
+ God takes him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I know you will be able to find a use for this,” said Mrs. Haldane in a
+ whisper, as they went, out of the house. “Goodbye for the present.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, ma’am! God bless you!” said Mrs. Mansfield, the tears springing into
+ her eyes as she looked at the gold coin in her hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER IX. A SUMMER SHOWER.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter that first
+ round of visitation Mrs. Haldane and the vicar met very frequently.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She found that she could be of use to a great number of poor people, and
+ the occupation afforded her by her self-imposed duties was novel and
+ interesting. It is pleasant to take the place of Providence, and mete out
+ help and gladness to afflicted humanity. She was actuated by no petty
+ spirit of vanity or ostentation; and though she soon learned that the
+ poorer and more necessitous people are, the more thankless they are as a
+ rule, these disagreeable experiences did not disillusion her. Very often
+ she would leave her carriage at the village inn and accompany Mr. Santley
+ on foot across the fields and down the deep green lanes to the different
+ houses at which he was to call. Their conversations on these occasions
+ were very interesting to her; and more than once as she drove back home in
+ the evening she fell a-thinking of that distant schoolgirl past which Jiad
+ so nearly faded away from her memory, and began to wonder whether, if her
+ family had not so promptly extinguished that little romance of hers, she
+ would now have been the wife of the vicar of Omberley. No word had yet
+ passed between them of that old time, and occasionally she felt just the
+ least curiosity to know how he regarded it. She knew he had not forgotten
+ it, and she smiled to herself as she called to mind the way in which he
+ had addressed her as “Ellen” that first Sunday. She had ever since been
+ only Mrs. Haldane to him. There was a singular fascination about him which
+ she was unable to explain to herself. She remembered his words, his looks
+ his gestures with a curious distinctness. She was conscious that,
+ notwithstanding his reticence, he still entertained a warm attachment to
+ her. She could see it in his eyes, could hear it in the tones of his
+ voice, could feel it in the pressure of his hand. There is no incentive to
+ affection so powerful and subtle as the knowledge that one is beloved.
+ Without any analysis of her feelings or any misgiving whatever, Mrs.
+ Haldane knew that the vicar’s friendship was very dear to her, that his
+ sympathy and counsel were rapidly growing indispensable. Many things
+ troubled her in connection with her husband—his indifference to any
+ form of religion, his stern acceptance of the conclusions of science,
+ however destructive they might be of all that the world had clung to as
+ essential to goodness and happiness, his utter disbelief of the truths of
+ revelation, his rejection of the only God in whom she could place trust
+ and confidence. Diffidently at first, and with pain and doubt, she spoke
+ to Mr. Santley of these troubles, and of the waverings of her own
+ convictions. Her husband was so good, so upright and noble a man, that she
+ could not despair of his some day returning to the faith and the Church of
+ his boyhood. Could the vicar not aid her in winning him back to God? Then,
+ too, at times her husband’s words appealed to her reason so irresistibly
+ that she began to question whether after all she had not spent her life in
+ the worship of a delusion. That did not happen often, but it terrified her
+ that it should be possible for her at any time or in any circumstance to
+ call in question the fatherhood of God or the divinity of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was only natural that these matters-should draw the vicar and his fair
+ parishioner very close to each other; and that intimate relationship of
+ soul with soul by subtle degrees widened and widened till each became
+ deeply interested in everything that could in any way affect the other. In
+ spite of his strongest resolve to be true to Edith, Mr. Santley felt
+ himself irresistibly drawn to her beautiful rival. He struggled with the
+ enchantment till further resistance seemed useless, and then he sought
+ refuge in self-deception. His nature, he fancied, was wide enough to
+ include the love of both. To Edith he could give the affection of a
+ husband, to Ellen the anticipative passion of a disfranchised spirit. One
+ was a temporal, the other an eternal sentiment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One afternoon, as they were returning from a visit, being on the edge of
+ the moss about a couple of miles from the village, they were overtaken by
+ a storm. There was a clump of trees hard by, and they entered it for
+ shelter. Mrs. Haldane had her waterproof with her; but the rain drove in
+ such drenching showers, that the vicar insisted on her standing under his
+ umbrella and sheltering her person with her own. Side by side, with the
+ large trunk of a beech-tree behind them and its tossing branches overhead,
+ they stood there for nearly half an hour. He held his umbrella over her so
+ that his arm almost touched her further shoulder. They were very close
+ together, and while she watched the flying volleys of rain he was gazing
+ on the beautiful complexion of her face and neck, on the rich dark masses
+ of her hair, her sweet arched eyebrows and long curving eyelashes. For
+ years he had not been able to regard her so closely. She did not notice
+ his scrutiny at first, but, when she did, little sunny flushes of colour
+ made her loveliness still more electrical. They were talking of the storm
+ at first, but now there was an interval of silence. She felt his eyes upon
+ her face—they seemed to touch her, and the contract made her cheeks
+ glow. At last she turned and looked straight at him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I was thinking of long ago,” he said in answer to her look; “do you
+ remember how once we were caught by a thunderstorm at Seacombe, and we
+ stood together under a tree just as we are now?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What an excellent memory you have!” she said with a smile, while her
+ colour again rose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I never forget anything,” rejoined Mr. Santley with emphasis. “But surely
+ you too recollect that?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh yes; I have not forgotten it,” she said lightly. “We were very foolish
+ people in those days.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We were very happy people, were we not?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, I think we were; it was a childish happiness.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Manhood, then, has brought me no greater. Ah, Ellen, you seem to have
+ easily let the past slip away from you. With me it is as vivid to-day as
+ if it were only yesterday that you and I walked on the cliffs together. Do
+ you remember we went to the gipsy’s camp in the sand-hills, and had our
+ fortunes told?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane blushed and laughed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We were foolish enough to do anything, I think, at that time.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “That pretty gipsy girl with the dark almond eyes and red-and-amber
+ headdress was sadly out in her reading of our destinies.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane made no reply. These reminiscences, and especially the tone
+ in which the vicar dwelt on them, disquieted her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I think the worst of the shower is over now,” she said, stepping from
+ under his umbrella. As she spoke, however, a fresh gust of wind and rain
+ contradicted her, and she stepped further into the shelter of the tree.
+ Mr. Santley clearly understood the significance of her words and action.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It is raining far too heavily to go yet,” he said gently. “Let me hold my
+ umbrella over you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She consented a little uneasily, but he laid his hand upon her arm and
+ said—
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have displeased you by referring to the past, have I not? Come, be
+ frank with me. Surely we are good enough friends by this to speak candidly
+ to each other.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She raised her great dark eyes to his face and replied gravely,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I do not like you to speak of the past in that way. I do not think it is
+ right. I hope we <i>are</i> good enough friends to speak candidly. I have
+ trusted you as a friend, as a very dear and true friend. I wish to keep
+ you always my friend; but when you spoke just now of our childish liking
+ for each other, I do not think you spoke as a—friend.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar was silent, and his eyes were cast on the ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have I done you an injustice?” she asked in a low tone, after a little
+ pause. “Then, pray, do forgive me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar regarded her with a look of sadness, and took the little gloved
+ hand she held out to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You do me injustice in thinking that I have forgotten your position.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane coloured deeply.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No,” continued the vicar, “I have not forgotten that. I <i>cannot</i>
+ forget it. And if I still love you with the old love of those vanished
+ years, if I love you with a love which will colour my whole life, do not
+ imagine that it is with any hope of a response in this world. I do your
+ husband no injustice; I do you no dishonour. I loved you long before he
+ knew you; I shall love you still in that after life in which he has
+ deliberately abandoned all claim to you in the very existence of which he
+ places no belief. Between this and then let me be your friend—your
+ brother; let me be as one in whom you will ever find sympathy and
+ devotedness; one who can share and understand all your doubts and
+ distress, all your temptations and trials. I do not ask you to love me; I
+ only ask you to let me love you.” This gust of passion was so sudden, so
+ unexpected, so overwhelming, that almost before she was aware, he had
+ spoken and she had listened. And now as she thought of what he said a
+ strangely mixed sensation of doubt and pleasure awoke within her. All that
+ he wished to be he was indeed already in her eyes—her adviser,
+ sympathiser, friend. Only this secret unexpectant love which lived on the
+ past and the future agitated her. And yet surely it was a pure spiritual
+ love which asked for no return on this side of the grave. These thoughts
+ occurred to her before she took the sober common-sense view of what he had
+ said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are taking too visionary, too feverish a view of life when you speak
+ in that way,” she said gently. “We cannot live on dreams. Our duties, our
+ work, our disappointments and cares are too real for us to be satisfied
+ with any love less real. You will some day meet some one worthy of your
+ affection, capable of sympathising with you and aiding you in your
+ life-work—some one who will be a fitting helpmeet to you. For my
+ part, I think that whenever we have missed what we are apt to consider a
+ great happiness it is a sure sign that God intends some better thing for
+ us.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar shook his head silently.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, you must have more faith!” she continued brightly. “And it ought to
+ be very easy for you to have faith in this matter. You have all the
+ advantages on your side. And, if I may be frank with you, I will say that
+ I think you would be happier if you <i>were</i> married. You need some
+ responsive heart, and nowhere could one more need close companionship than
+ in such a place as Omberley.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The rain had ceased, and as she spoke the last words she glanced up at the
+ clouds breaking away from the sunny blue of the sky.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I think we may safely start now. How bright and sweet everything looks
+ after the rain; and what a fragrance the fields have!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Santley did not attempt to renew the conversation. Clearly she was not
+ in the mood, and he believed that what he had said had fallen as seed in a
+ generous soil, and would germinate in the warmth of her fervid
+ temperament. It was enough that she knew he still loved her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such a knowledge is ever dangerous to an imaginative woman. For several
+ days after that incident Mrs. Haldane never thought of the vicar, never
+ heard his name mentioned without at the same time unconsciously recalling—or
+ rather without having flashed upon her a mental picture not only of that
+ little wood near the moss, but of the romantic shore at Seacombe. She felt
+ a strange tender interest in the man who had loved her so long, and still
+ loved her so hopelessly, so unselfishly. Hitherto in their relationship
+ she had only thought of herself, of her own needs and her own happiness.
+ She had looked up to him. But that avowal had changed their position
+ towards one another in a singular way. He to whom every one felt entitled
+ to appeal to for advice, assistance, consolation, was evidently himself in
+ need of human affection. She had hitherto regarded the priest rather than
+ the man, but now the man chiefly engaged her attention, and attracted her
+ sympathy while he excited and perplexed her imagination. What could she do
+ to be of service to him? She set her woman’s wit to work in a woman’s way,
+ and speedily arrived at one means of serving him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “George,” she said to her husband one morning at breakfast, “I have been
+ thinking of asking an old schoolfellow of mine, Hettie Taylor, to come and
+ spend a few weeks with us. She lives in London, and she will be delighted
+ with the change to the country, I know. What do you say?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Beginning to feel lonely already?” he asked, glancing up at her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh no, not at all. Only I have been thinking of her, and should like to
+ have her with me again for a little while. I am sure you will like her.
+ She is very pretty—such beautiful brown hair and eyes—and
+ decidedly intellectual.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ask her by all means, then.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thanks. I will write to her to-day. No, not to-day—I shall be busy
+ seeing after the children’s picnic. Will you not come, dear? You know you
+ love children.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “To a picnic, my dear girl!” cried Mr. Haldane aghast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, in Barton Wood. The children are all going in a couple of waggons.
+ And there will be some of the old people there if the weather is fine. Do
+ come.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “A picnic, my dear Nell, is pure atavism—it is one of those lapses
+ into savagery which betray the aboriginal arboreal blood,” said Mr.
+ Haldane, laughing. “No, no; I have too much respect for the civilization
+ of the century and for my personal comfort to willingly retrograde to the
+ Drift Period.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER X. THE KISS.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he artist in
+ search of a pretty rural subject could not do better than paint a village
+ holiday—a holiday from which the men and women are all but excluded,
+ and the village school-children and the old people are gathered together
+ for a voyage through the leafy lanes to the picturesque playground of a
+ neighbouring wood. Such an enjoyable spectacle as that presented on the
+ day of the Omberley school-treat deserved to be immortalized by art, if
+ only for the sake of filling a city parlour with a sense of eternal
+ summer. It was a glorious August morning that laughed out over Omberley on
+ the day of the great picnic. The young people were astir early, for it had
+ been impossible to sleep from the excitement they felt after the first
+ glimmer of dawn. About ten o’clock the streets were gay with troops of
+ children, clean, rosy-cheeked, and dressed in their Sunday clothes, who
+ went singing to the rendezvous at the schoolhouse. There they were
+ received by Miss Dora Greatheart, who inspected them all, and expressed
+ her approbation at finding them so neat and prim. In twos and threes the
+ old people, the men in tall hats and swallow-tailed coats for the most
+ part, and the women in their best black gowns and church bonnets, came
+ slowly along the road, gossiping and laughing and breathing hard with the
+ weakness of old age. Then came the musicians—old Gabriel Ware, the
+ sexton, with his fiddle, and two younger men, one of whom played the
+ concertina and the other the cornopean, each with a huge nosegay in his
+ breast and wearing the jauntiest air conceivable. There was a happy buzz
+ of excitement about the schoolhouse as the people assembled; a joyous
+ babble of the clear treble voices of little lads and lasses, and the
+ piping notes of garrulous patriarchs and ancient dames; a strange picture,
+ as pathetic as it was pretty, of bright young faces and dancing little
+ figures mingling among gray wrinkled visages and frail stooping shapes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, Dora, we are to have a fine day,” said Edith, as she entered the
+ garden and shook hands with the schoolmistress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Splendid; only we shall be a little late in starting. We should have been
+ off at ten, and the waggons have not come yet. Why, here is old Daddy
+ coming!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She had stepped out to the road to look for the waggons, and now she went
+ to welcome the new arrival whom she called Daddy. He was a very old, very
+ wiry little man, with a funny little face full of wrinkles, a pair of
+ little grey eyes, and a perfectly bald head. This was the oldest
+ inhabitant of Omberley; and though he was in his ninety-second year, he
+ was as brisk and hearty as many who were twenty years his juniors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, Daddy, you have actually come!” said Dora, shaking hands with him.
+ “I am very glad. And how do you feel to-day? Pretty strong and hearty?’
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Strong as Samson, mistress, and hearty as—hearty as anything,”
+ replied the old man, with a chuckle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Please, miss,” said a young woman who accompanied him, “mother sends her
+ duty, and will you kindly take care of him and see as he doesn’t go
+ a-thinking.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Daddy’s only symptom of senility was an aptitude to fall into a state of
+ unconsciousness, and in these cases, which sometimes lasted for hours
+ together, he would sit down wherever he was, and consequently ran
+ considerable risks when he went out-of-doors alone. Though the old fellow
+ was quite unable to give any account of himself during these lapses into
+ oblivion, he always stoutly declared that he had been only thinking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And please, miss, you’ll find his bacca-box and his pipe in his tail
+ pocket, and his hankercher, and the matches is in his vest pocket. He do
+ forget where he puts his things.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Daddy laughed scornfully.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I never forgets nothing, I don’t,” he said boastingly. “I can mind o’ the
+ great beech as was blown down on the green in the whirlywind of ‘92; ay, I
+ mind——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A loud cheer from the school children interrupted the flow of Daddy’s
+ reminiscences. The greeting was intended for the vicar and the patroness
+ of the festival, Mrs. Haldane, who now drove up to the school-house. She
+ was already acquainted with Dora, but she had not yet met either Edith or
+ the oldest inhabitant. Mr. Santley introduced both as the waggons came in
+ sight, and at once the cheering was renewed, and the children streamed out
+ into the road. What a fine sight those waggons were v—the long,
+ curved, wheeled ships of the inland farmer, painted yellow and red, and
+ drawn by big horses, with huge collars and bright iron chains! The
+ semicircular canvas awning had been removed, but the wooden arches which
+ supported it were wreathed with leaves and flowers, and festoons hung
+ overhead between arch and arch. The horses, too, were gaily decked out,
+ each having a nosegay between its ears, and its mane and tail tied up with
+ ribbons. The bottom of the waggons were covered with trusses of straw, to
+ make comfortable seats for the old folk. The more daring of the lads were
+ already clambering up the wheels, and securing seats on the flakes which
+ went along the sides of the rustic ship like a sort of outrigger.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Before allowing Daddy to be helped on board, Miss Greatheart beckoned to
+ her a little pale-faced girl who was obliged to use crutches.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Nannie dear, I want you to look after Daddy as much as you can. When you
+ are tired of him you must come and tell me. Don’t let him go away by
+ himself, and wake him up if he sleeps too long.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was said in a whisper to the child, who smiled and nodded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Now, Daddy, here’s little Nannie Swales,” said Dora; “I want you to take
+ care of her. You’re the only person I can trust to look after her
+ properly. And she likes to talk to you and see you smoke.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The little old man smiled and chuckled complacently.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Put her aside of me, mistress, and I’ll see as no ill comes to her.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What could have been more charmingly idyllic than those two great waggons,
+ crowded with little shining-eyed tots, merry lads and lasses, withered old
+ men and women, all happy and contented? The blue sky laughed down on them;
+ the green leaves and flowers embowered them; and as a start was; made, one
+ of the musicians struck up “For we’ll a-hunting go” on the concertina, and
+ a score of clear, fresh voices joined in the jovial song.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through the village, which turned out to wave hands to them as they passed
+ singing and cheering, away through gold-green stretches of ripening
+ harvest, past empty fields where the hay had all been cut and carted,
+ between level expanses of root crops lying green in the hot sun, till at
+ last the dark embankment of Barton Wood rises above the distant sky. How
+ cool and refreshing it is, after the glare of the midday sun, to get into
+ the green shadowland of these grand old beeches and sycamores!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The road winds leisurely as if to seek out the coolest recesses of the
+ wood, and beneath the great bunches of heavy foliage, what quiet, dim
+ distances one sees between the trunks, strewn thick with withered leaves,
+ through which the moss and grass and a thousand moist plants thrust their
+ emerald way, and blue and pink and yellow flowers are clustered in
+ cushions of velvet colour! A few yards away from the road the air seems
+ brown and transparent. That must be the reason why the leaves of the
+ mountain ash are so darkly green, and the berries so brilliantly crimson.
+ If you pluck a bunch and take it out of the wood, you will find it has
+ become disenchanted; the colour is no longer the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The road is not a highway, but leads to an old quarry of brown sandstone.
+ There has been no work done here for a few years, but many generations of
+ stonemasons have plied hammer and chisel in this picturesque workshop. It
+ is a tradition that the stone of Foxglove Manor, old as it is, was got
+ here. The old church was built from these brown walls of stone; so was the
+ Vicarage, and so were the windowsills and facings of all the houses in
+ Omberley. It is an unusually large quarry, for a great deal of stone has
+ been taken away during these two hundred odd years. A great deal of
+ half-shaped stone lies about in large square and oblong blocks, both on
+ the floor of the quarry, and among the trees at its entrance. The trees
+ must have sprung up since many of these blocks were cut, otherwise it is
+ not easy to see why they should have been put where you now find them. On
+ two sides the walls of rock are high and precipitous, but on the others
+ the grass and ferns and beeches are carried into the quarry as on the
+ swell of a green wave. A stone shed and hut, roofed with red tiles, stand
+ at the foot of one of these slopes, and here the commissariat department
+ has established itself. A romantic, green, cosy, convenient spot for a
+ picnic and a dance!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The waggons were driven right into the quarry, and the horses were hobbled
+ and allowed to graze beneath the trees. The hour before dinner was spent
+ in wandering through the woods gathering flowers and berries, in rolling
+ about on the soft grass, or in smoking and chatting among the blocks of
+ sandstone. When the cornopean sounded the signal for the feast, the
+ youngsters came trooping in, dancing and eager to begin, for the
+ excitement had prevented most of them from taking breakfast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what a luxurious feast it was The vicar, Mrs. Haldane, Edith, and Miss
+ Greatheart, went about the various groups seeing that every one was well
+ supplied with what they liked best. After the cold meats, pies, and
+ pastry, came a liberal distribution of fruit and milk to the children, and
+ a glass of wine to the old people; and at this point Daddy was made the
+ object of so much nudging and whispering and signalling, that at last he
+ got upon his feet and made a wonderful little speech on behalf of the
+ company, keeping his wine-glass in his hand all the time, and every now
+ and then holding it up between his eye and the light with the shrewd air
+ of a connoisseur. Then there were three cheers for Mrs. Haldane, and three
+ cheers for the vicar, three for Dora and for Edith, and happily some young
+ rascal, whose milk had been too strong for him, proposed in a frightened
+ scream three cheers for. Daddy, which were very heartily given by all the
+ school children, though the seniors looked much shocked and surprised at
+ so daring a demonstration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In about an hour the racing and games were to begin, and meanwhile Mrs.
+ Haldane, the vicar, and the two young ladies were to have lunch together.
+ It is not necessary to enter into any detail of the various sports which
+ took place, or to linger over the dancing and merrymaking that followed.
+ When the fun was at its height, and Daddy was capering gaily to the
+ jigging of the small orchestra, Edith, who felt only half interested,
+ slipped quietly away into the wood. She was not surprised or aggrieved
+ that Mr. Santley paid so much attention to the lady of the Manor, but she
+ felt hurt that he seemed so completely to forget and overlook herself. She
+ wished now to be a little alone in Arden, for Edith loved the woods, and
+ in every glade she could imagine in her fanciful moments that Jaques, or
+ Rosalind, or Touchstone had just gone by, so closely had she associated
+ the dramatic idyl with every piece of English forest-land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She followed at haphazard a foot-track that went through the trees until
+ she reached a brook, which she found she could cross by means of three
+ slippery-looking stepping-stones, against which the water bickered and
+ gurgled as it raced along. All the steep banks were knee-deep in beautiful
+ ferns close by the waters edge, and higher up the slope grew luxurious
+ tufts of wild flowers. The sound of-the water was very pleasant to hear,
+ and when she had nimbly jumped across it, instead of following the path,
+ she went up the side of the stream to where a mountain ash leaned its
+ dense clusters of blood-bright berries right across. At the foot of the
+ tree was a large boulder, and, after a glance round her, she sat down and
+ drew off her shoes and stockings. The weather was warm, and the clear,
+ sun-flecked water was irresistibly inviting. There she sat for some time,
+ dreamily paddling with her little white feet, like a pretty dryad whose
+ tree grew in too dry a soil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She had finished playing with the cool stream, and was letting her feet
+ dry in the patches of sunlight that pierced through the branches above
+ her, when she heard a sound of voices. She hastily tried to draw on her
+ stockings, but her skin was still too moist; and so, gathering her feet
+ under her skirt, she concealed herself as much as possible from the
+ observation of the intruders. As they approached she recognized the voices
+ with a start, and crouched down behind the boulder more closely than
+ before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We can go no further this way,” said Mrs. Haldane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh yes, we can. I will assist you over the stones,” the vicar rejoined.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “They look very treacherous and slippery, and the water makes one nervous,
+ running so fast.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Look, it is quite safe!” said the vicar; and Edith, peeping from the side
+ of the boulder, saw him step quickly across the brook. “It is a pity you
+ should miss the old Roman camp, when you are so near it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “If you will come back and assist me from this side, I will try them,”
+ said Mrs. Haldane..
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar returned across the brook, and Edith saw the lady gather her
+ dress and prepare to step on to the first stone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Now, you must be ready to reach me your hand in case I need it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, you will find it quite easy when you try. Don’t stop, but go right
+ across without hesitation.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane jumped fairly enough on to the first boulder, but, instead of
+ allowing the forward impetus to carry her on, she tried to stop and steady
+ herself on the narrow footing among the rushing water. She lost at once
+ her balance and her courage, and turning to him with outstretched arms,
+ she cried out, “Quick! quick! I shall fall!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She threw herself back to the side as she spoke, and he caught her in his
+ arms. Her arms were about his neck, her face close to his; he felt her
+ breath upon his cheek. It was only for an instant, and as she tried to
+ recover herself, their eyes met with a flash of self-consciousness. In the
+ passionate excitement of that supreme moment he strained her to his
+ breast, and pressed his lips to her in a long, violent kiss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith sprang to her feet as though she had been stung; but instantly she
+ recollected herself, and sank down into her hiding-place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane tore herself from the arms that encircled her, and fronted
+ the vicar with a flushed, angry face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you mad, Mr. Santley?” she asked indignantly. “Allow me to pass at
+ once.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stood aside trembling, white, and speechless; and she swept by him and
+ hurried back through the wood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar looked after her, but stood as if rooted to the spot; while
+ Edith, heedless of the hard stones and her naked feet, ran down wildly to
+ the stepping-stones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He turned as she approached, and there, with the water whirling between
+ them, she confronted him like his outraged conscience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER XI. EDITH.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ |Is this your fidelity? is this your love?” she asked bitterly.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ The deadly pallor of the vicars face had given place to a flush of guilt
+ and shame. He crossed the brook and stood beside her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Edith, I have done wrong. Can you forgive me?” he asked, attempting to
+ take her hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do not touch me, Mr. Santley!” she exclaimed, stepping back from him. “Do
+ not speak to me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Will you not forgive me, Edith?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ask God to forgive you. It matters little now whether I forgive or not.
+ Please go away and leave me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I cannot leave you in this manner. Say you forgive. I confess I have done
+ wrong, but it was in the heat of passion, it was not premeditated.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The heat of passion! Was it only in the heat of passion that you——
+ Oh, go at once, Mr. Santley! Go before I say what had better be left
+ unspoken!” The vicar paused and looked at her anxiously; but Edith,
+ throwing her shoes and stockings on the ground, sat down on a stone, and
+ resting her pale, unhappy face on her hands, gazed with a hard, fixed
+ expression at the water.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Dearest Edith, try to believe that what I did was only an act of
+ momentary madness; blame me if you will, for I cannot too severely blame
+ myself, but do not look so relentless and unforgiving.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She never stirred or gave any indication that she had heard him, but sat
+ staring at the water.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You will be sorry for your unkindness afterwards,” he continued.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She paid no heed to him, and he saw it was hopeless to try to effect a
+ reconciliation at the present moment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Since you command me to go, I will go.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Still she appeared not to have heard him. He went back across the brook,
+ and, glancing back once or twice, disappeared in the wood. A minute or two
+ later he stole back again, and saw that she was still sitting by the brook
+ in the same stony attitude. A vague sense of uneasiness took possession of
+ him. He knew that even the meekest, frailest, and gentlest of women are
+ capable of the most tragic extremities when under the sway of passion. Yet
+ what could he do? She would not speak to him, and was deaf to all he could
+ say in extenuation of his conduct. Trusting to the effect of a little
+ quiet reflection, and to the love which he knew she felt for him, he
+ resolved at length to leave her to herself. After all he had, it seemed to
+ him, more to fear from Mrs. Haldane than from Edith. To what frightful
+ consequences he had exposed himself by that act of folly! Would she tell
+ her husband? Would the story leak out and become the scandal of the
+ country side? With a sickening dread of what the future had in store for
+ him, he retraced his steps to the quarry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane’s first impulse was to order her carriage and at once drive
+ home, but her hurried walk through the wood gradually became slower as she
+ reflected on the strange interpretation that would be put upon so sudden a
+ departure. She had brought the vicar, and if she now hastened away without
+ him, evil tongues would soon be busied with both her name and his. For the
+ sake of the office he held, and for her own sake as well, she resolved to
+ be silent on what had happened. She felt sure that the vicar would be
+ sufficiently punished by the stings of his own conscience, and if any
+ future chastisement were required he should find it in her distance and
+ frigid treatment of him. Consequently, when Mrs. Haldane reached the
+ quarry she assumed a cheerful, friendly air, stopped to say a few kind
+ words to the old people, and interested herself in the amusements of the
+ children. It was now drawing near tea-time, and the sun was westering.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Santley felt relieved when he found that Mrs. Haldane had not abruptly
+ left, as he dreaded she would do, but he made no attempt to speak to her
+ or attract her attention. At tea-time she took a cup in her hand and
+ joined a group of little girls, instead of taking her place at the table
+ set aside for her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar’s eye glanced restlessly about for Edith, but she had not obeyed
+ the summons of the cornopean, and in the bustle and excitement, her
+ absence was not noticed. It was only when the horses had been put into the
+ shafts, and the children, after being counted, were taking their places in
+ the waggons, that Miss Greatheart missed her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have you seen Miss Dove, Mr. Santley?” she asked, after she had searched
+ in vain through the little crowd for Edith. “I don’t think she was at
+ tea.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “She went in the direction of the old camp,” replied the#vicar, hurriedly;
+ “she cannot have heard the signal. Do not say anything. I think I shall be
+ easily able to find her. If Mrs. Haldane asks for me, will you say I have
+ gone to look for her? You can start as soon as you are ready; we shall
+ easily overtake you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So saying, Mr. Santley plunged into the wood, and hurried to the brook.
+ Edith was still sitting where he had left her, but she had in the
+ meanwhile put on her shoes and stockings. Instead of the fixed, determined
+ expression, her face now wore a look of intense wretchedness, and
+ evidently she had been crying. She looked up at the sound of his
+ footsteps.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Edith, we are going home,” he said, as he reached the edge of the stream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You can go,” was the answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But not without you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, without me. I am not going home. I am never going home any more. I
+ have no home. Oh! mother, mother!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The last words were uttered in a low, sobbing voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Come, come, you must not speak like that. You must go home. What would
+ your poor aunt say if you did anything so foolish?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, what would she say if she knew how I have disgraced her and myself?
+ No, I cannot go home any more.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But you cannot stay here all night,” said the vicar, with a chill,
+ sinking tremor at the heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She gave no answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Edith, my dear girl, for God’s sake do not say you are thinking of doing
+ anything rash!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What else can I do? What else am I fit for but disgrace and a miserable
+ end? Oh, Mr. Santley, you swore to me that before God I was your true
+ wife. I believed you then. I did not think you were only acting in a
+ moment of passion. But now I see that it was a dreadful sin. I was not
+ your wife; and oh! what have you made me instead?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was very pale, and he trembled from head to foot as he listened to her
+ words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do not speak so loud,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What! do you feel ashamed? Are you afraid of any one knowing? But God
+ knows it now, and my poor, poor mother knows it—God help me!—and
+ all the world will know it some day.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Edith, you will not ruin me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have you not ruined me? Have you not cast me off for a woman who does not
+ even care for you—for another man’s wife? Oh no, do not be afraid. I
+ will take my shame with me in silence. No one shall be able to say a word
+ against you now, but all the world will know at the last.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Edith, listen to me. I will tell you everything; I will hide nothing from
+ you; but do not condemn me unheard. All that I said to you was true, and
+ is still true. Till <i>she</i> came, I did really and most truly love you
+ with all my heart and soul. You were my very wife, in God’s eyes, if love
+ and truth be, as they are, what makes the validity of marriage. I did not
+ deceive you; I did not speak in a moment of passion. Before Heaven I took
+ you for my wife, and before Heaven I believed myself your husband.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And then she came!” interposed Edith, bitterly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And then she came. I have told you all she was to me once, all I hoped
+ she would one day be. But I have not told you how I have struggled to be
+ true to you in every word and thought. It has been a hard and a bitter
+ struggle—all the more hard and bitter that I have failed. I confess,
+ Edith, that I have not been true. But are we all sinless? are we perfect?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We can at least be honourable. Your love of her is a crime.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Her beauty maddens me. She is my evil angel. To see her is to love her
+ and long for her. And instead of helping me to conquer temptation, instead
+ of trying to save me from myself, you cast me from you, you upbraid my
+ weakness, you taunt me with your unhappiness. When she is not near, my
+ better nature turns to you. You help me to believe in God, in goodness;
+ she drives me to unbelief and atheism. Did you fancy I was a saint? Have
+ not I my passions and temptations as well as other men? Even the just man
+ falls seven times a day; if you indeed loved me as a true wife, you would
+ find it in your heart to forgive even unto seventy times seven.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know how I have loved!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “<i>Have</i> loved! Ay, and how easily you have ceased to love!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No, no; I have never ceased to love you. It is because I must still love
+ and love you that I am so wretched.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then how can you be so unforgiving?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, I am not unforgiving. I can forgive you anything, so long as I know
+ that I am dear to you. Seven and seventy-seven times.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you forgive me now?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I do. But you will never any more——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You must help me not to; you must pray for me, and assist me to be ever
+ faithful to you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will, I will.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He drew her to him, and kissed her on the lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you will come home now?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, with you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The waggons have started, and we must walk quickly to overtake them.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, I don’t care now how far we have to walk.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mrs. Haldane, however, may have waited for us.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith stopped short.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I couldn’t go near her.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Consider a moment, darling. She knows nothing about you, and she does not
+ know that you know anything about her. It might look strange if she drove
+ home without me, after bringing me here. I feared at first that she would
+ have left instantly, but she did not. She may not wish to give people any
+ reason for talking about any sudden coolness between us. Do you understand
+ me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes. I will go.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar had correctly divined the course Mrs. Haldane had pursued. When
+ she learned that Mr. Santley had gone in search of Edith, she drove very
+ leisurely along, so that they might overtake her. She had just got clear
+ of the wood when, on looking round, she observed them coming through the
+ trees. She drew up till they reached her; and when they had got in, she
+ started a brisk conversation with Edith on all manner of topics. She was
+ in her liveliest mood, and to Edith it seemed almost incredible that the
+ scene she had witnessed at the brook was a very serious fact, and not an
+ hallucination. Edith noticed, however, that the vicar seldom spoke, and
+ that, though Mrs. Haldane listened and answered when he made any remark,
+ the conversation was between Mrs. Haldane and herself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At parting Mrs. Haldane gave him her finger-tips, and was apparently
+ paying more attention to Edith when she said good-bye to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER XII. CONSCIENCE.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>rs. Haldane came
+ no more to the Vicarage that week, and on Sunday she did not remain, as
+ she had hitherto done, for the communion at the close of the morning
+ service. She was evidently deeply offended, and was doing all she could to
+ avoid meeting the vicar. With him that week had been one of terrible
+ conflict. Tortured with remorse and shame, he was still mad with passion.
+ That kiss was still burning on his lips. He still could feel that
+ voluptuous form in his arms. It seemed, indeed, as though Mrs. Haldane
+ were his evil genius, driving him on to destruction. He was unable to
+ pray; and when he sat down to prepare his sermon, her face rose between
+ him and the paper, and, starting up, he rushed from the house and walked
+ rapidly away into the country. This was in the forenoon, and he walked on
+ and on at a quick pace for several hours. He passed little hamlets and
+ farmsteads which he did not notice, for his mind was absorbed in a
+ wretchedness so intense that he scarcely was conscious of what he was
+ doing. In the afternoon he came to a wood, and, worn out with fatigue and
+ agitation, he entered it and flung himself beneath the shadow of a tree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There he lay, a prey to conscience, till the sun went down. He had had no
+ food since morning, and he was now weak and nervous. He returned from the
+ wood to the high-road and retraced his steps homeward. As he passed by the
+ wayside cottages, he was tempted once or twice to stop and ask for bread
+ and milk, but after a mental contest he each time conquered the pangs of
+ hunger and thirst, and went on again. The fathers of the desert had
+ subdued the lusts of the flesh by hunger and stripes and physical
+ suffering, and if mortification could exorcise the evil spirit within him,
+ he would have no mercy on himself. He was a great distance from home, and,
+ notwithstanding his resolution to suffer and endure, he was several times
+ forced to sit down and rest on heaps of broken stones by the wayside; and
+ on one of these occasions a spray of bramble-berries hanging over the
+ hedge caught his eye, and looked so rich and sweet that he plucked one and
+ raised it to his mouth. The next moment, however, he had flung it away
+ from him. On another occasion he was startled to his feet by the sound of
+ wheels, and as he walked on he was overtaken by a neighbouring farmer in
+ his gig, who drew up as he was passing, and touched his hat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Making for home, Mr. Santley?” he asked, as he shook up the cushion on
+ the vacant seat beside him. “I can put you down at your own door, sir.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thank you, Mr. Henderson; I prefer walking, and I have some business to
+ attend to.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “All right, sir. It’s a fine evening for a walk. Good-bye.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Good-bye.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar watched the gig diminish on the distant road till at length the
+ hedgerows concealed it, with a certain sense of stoical satisfaction. He
+ felt he was not all weakness; there was yet left some power of
+ self-denial, some fortitude to endure self-inflicted chastisement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was nearly dark when he arrived again in Omberley. The windows were
+ ruddy with fire and gaslight; there were no children playing in the
+ streets; several of the small shopkeepers who kept open late, were now at
+ last putting up their shutters. There was a genial glow from the
+ red-curtained window of the village inn, and a sound of singing and
+ merriment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why should I not go in and join them?” he thought to himself. “What an
+ effect it would have, if I stepped into the sanded taproom and called for
+ a pipe and a quart of beer! The vicar smoking a long clay, with his
+ frothing pewter on the deal table beside him! Why not? Has not the vicar
+ his gross appetites as well as you? Why should you be scandalized,
+ friends, if he should indulge in the same merry way as yourselves? Is he
+ not a mere man like you, with the same animal needs and cravings? Fools,
+ who shrink with horror from the humanity of a man because he wears a black
+ coat and talks to you of duty and sacrifice and godliness! How little you
+ know the poor wretch to whom you look for counsel and comfort and
+ mediation with Heaven!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was turning away, when the taproom door was flung open, and half a
+ dozen tipsy men, cursing and quarrelling, staggered out into the street.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among them was a handsome, swarthy girl of two and twenty, gaily dressed
+ in colours, with a coloured handkerchief bound over her black hair, and a
+ guitar in her hand. They were evidently quarrelling about the girl, who
+ was doing her best to make peace among them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You does me no good by your fighting and kicking up a row, masters.
+ Decent folks won’t let a wench into the house when there’s always a fight
+ got up about her. You spoils my market, and gets me an ill name, masters.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Any way, Jack Haywood shan’t lay a finger on thee, Sal!” cried a burly
+ young fellow, deep in his cups, as he clenched his horny fist and shook it
+ at Jack.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What is’t to you what Jack does?” returned the girl, saucily. “Neither
+ Jack nor thee shall lay a finger on me against my will. I reckon I can
+ take care o’ myself, masters.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ay, ay, thou canst that!” assented several voices.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar, who had stood to witness this scene, now stepped in among the
+ group. The men recognized him, and, touching their forelocks, slunk away
+ in sheepish silence. He uttered not a word, but his pale face sobered them
+ like a dash of cold water. Only the girl was left, and she stood, red and
+ frightened, while her hands were nervously busied with the guitar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are back again, Sal, and at your old ways,” said the vicar, in a low
+ voice. “I see, all good advice and all encouragement are wasted on you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I can’t help it, sir,” said the girl, sullenly. “I was born bad; I’m of a
+ bad lot. It’s no use trying any more. It’s in the blood and the bone, and
+ it’ll come out, in spite of everything.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have you made much to-day?” asked the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “A shilling.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Where are you going to stop tonight?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “At old Mary Henson’s, in Bara Street.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then, go home at once, Sal,” said the vicar, giving her a half-crown.
+ “Will you promise me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you will speak to no man tonight? You promise?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes,” said the girl, taking the money, with a strange look of inquiry at
+ the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And try to say your prayers before you go to sleep.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The girl dropped a curtsy, and went slowly down the street. With a bitter
+ laugh, the vicar pursued his way homeward.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “In the blood and the bone! In the blood and the bone!” he; repeated to
+ himself. “You are right, girl; we are born bad—born bad. The bestial
+ madness of ages and aeons, the lust and lasciviousness of countless
+ generations, are still in our blood, and our instincts are still the
+ instincts of the beast and the savage. Hypocrite and blasphemer that I am!
+ Whited sepulchre, reeking with corruption! Living lie and mask of
+ holiness! O God, what a wretch am I, who dare, to speak of purity and
+ repentance to this woman!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he reached the Vicarage, his sister was anxiously awaiting him, and
+ supper was ready.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Where have you been so long?” she asked, a little impatiently. “I think
+ you might leave word when you expect to be detained beyond your usual
+ time. It is eleven o’clock.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I could not say how long I should be,” replied the vicar, with a weary
+ look, which touched his sister and changed her ill-temper to solicitude.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are quite tired out, poor fellow,” she said, laying her hand on his
+ shoulder. “Well, come to supper. It is ready.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I cannot take anything at present,” replied Mr. Santley. “I will, go and
+ do a little of my sermon.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Shall I leave something out for you, then?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, please. Good night.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He went into the study, lit the gas, and, locking the door, flung himself
+ into an armchair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “In the blood! in the blood!” he bitterly communed with himself. “And,
+ with all our wild dreams and aspirations, we are but what science says we
+ are, the conqueror of the lascivious ape, the offspring of some common
+ ancestral bestiality, which transmitted to the simian its animalism free
+ and unfettered except by appetite, and to man the germs of a moral law
+ which must be for ever at variance with his sensual instincts. God! we are
+ worse than apes—we the immortals, with our ideals of spirit and
+ purity!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He rose, and going across the room to the tall, carved oak cupboard, whose
+ contents were a secret to all but himself, he unlocked it and opened the
+ folding doors. The light fell on a large, beautiful statue of the Madonna,
+ with the Infant Christ in her arms. The figure was in plaster, exquisitely
+ coloured, and of a rare loveliness. He looked at it abstractedly for a
+ long while.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mother of God!” he exclaimed at length, with passionate fervour.
+ “Spotless virgin, woman above all women glorified, the solitary boast of
+ our tainted nature—oh, dream and desire of men striving for their
+ lost innocence, how vainly have I worshipped and prayed to thee! How
+ ardently have I believed in thy immaculate motherhood! How yearningly I
+ have cried to thee for thy aid and intercession! And no answer has been
+ granted to my supplications. My feverish exaltation has passed from me,
+ leaving me weak and at the mercy of my senses. Art thou, too, but a poetic
+ myth of a later superstition—an idealization more beautiful, more
+ divine than the frail goddesses of Greece and Rome? The art and poetry of
+ the world have turned to thee for inspiration, the ascetic has filled the
+ cold cell with the shining vision of thee, altars have been raised to thee
+ over half the globe, the prayers of nations ascend to thee, and art thou
+ but a beautiful conception of the heart, powerless to aid or to hear thy
+ suppliants?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He paused, as if, indeed, he expected some sign or word in answer to his
+ wild appeal. Then, closing the doors again and locking them, he went
+ towards his-desk. On it lay the manuscript of the sermon he had preached
+ on the Unknown God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The Unknown God!” he exclaimed. “What if her husband is right! What if,
+ indeed, there be no God, no God for us, no God of whom we shall ever be
+ conscious! All science points that way. When the man is dead, his soul is
+ dead too. We deny it; but what is our denial worth? It is our interest to
+ deny it. All phenomena contradict our denial. No man has ever risen from
+ the grave to give us assurance of our immortality. Ah, truly, ‘if there be
+ no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen; and if Christ be
+ not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain!’”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He paced the room excitedly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why act the knave and the hypocrite longer? Why delude the world with a
+ false hope of a future that can never be? Why preach prayer and sacrifice,
+ and suffering and patience, when this life is all? If Christ is not risen,
+ our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He again paced the room; and then, going to a drawer where the keys of the
+ church were kept, he took them, and stole noiselessly out of the house.
+ All was very still outside. The stars were shining, and it was duskily
+ clear. He traversed the churchyard, and reaching the porch he unlocked the
+ door and entered. It was quite dark, except that the tall, narrow windows
+ looked grey against the blackness of the rest of the building, and a
+ little bead of flame burned in the sanctuary lamp. He closed the door
+ after him, and went up the echoing nave to the chancel. Thence he groped
+ his way to the pulpit, and ascending he looked down into the darkness
+ before him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stood there in silence, straining his eyes into the gloom, and
+ gradually there came out of the darkness faint, spectral rows of faces,
+ turned up to his with a horrified and bewildered aspect. He uttered no
+ word, but in his brain he was preaching from the text of Paul, and proving
+ that Christ, indeed, had never risen, and that their faith was vain. This
+ world was all, and there was nothing beyond it. Vice and virtue were but
+ social and physical distinctions, implying that the consequences of the
+ one were destructive of happiness, of the other were conducive to
+ happiness. Sin was a fiction, and the sense of sinfulness a morbid
+ development of the imagination. Every man was a law unto himself, and that
+ law must be obeyed. A mans actions were the outcome of his constitution.
+ He was not morally responsible for them. Indeed, moral responsibility was
+ a philosophical error. In dumb show was that long, phrenzied sermon
+ preached to a phantom congregation. At the close the vicar, omitting the
+ usual form of benediction, descended from the pulpit, staggered across the
+ chancel, and fell in a swoon at the foot of the steps which led to the
+ altar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER XIII. IN THE LABORATORY.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he grey dawn was
+ glimmering through the chancel when Mr. Santley regained consciousness. He
+ looked wonderingly about him, and at first was unable to understand how he
+ came to be in his present position. That physical collapse had been a
+ merciful relief from a state of mental tension which had become
+ intolerable. He felt faint but calm, and the horrible excitement of the
+ last few hours presented itself to his memory as a sort of ghastly
+ nightmare from which he had been providentially awakened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He rose and went out into the churchyard. The air was moist and cool. A
+ strange white mist lay in fantastic pools and streaks on the bare
+ hayfields. The corn was full of an indistinct white gauzy vapour. So were
+ the trees. There was not much of it in the open air. It had a spectral
+ look, and, like spirits, it seemed to require some material thing to
+ interpenetrate and rest upon. The grass was heavy with dew, and the
+ gravelled walk as dark coloured as though there had been rain. From the
+ corn came the sound of innumerable chirpings and twitterings. The fields
+ seemed to be swarming with sweet, sharp musical notes. In the trees, too,
+ though there was no stir of wings, there was a very tumult of bird-song—not
+ the full, joyous outpouring, but a ceaseless orchestral tuning up and
+ rehearsing as it were. The familiar graveyard in this unusual misty light,
+ and alive with this strange music, seemed a place in which ne had never
+ been before. The effect was as novel as the first appearance of a
+ well-known landscape buried in snow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The newness of what was so familiar excited an indefinable interest in
+ him. He felt somehow as though he had passed through the valley of the
+ shadow, and this was the day after death—that death by which we
+ shall not all die, but by which we and all things shall be changed. He
+ lingered in that mental state in which thought expands beyond the bounds
+ of consciousness, and it was not till a low, faint flush of red began to
+ colour the east that he returned to the Vicarage, and, throwing himself on
+ his bed, fell into the deep, dreamless sleep of exhaustion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was fortunate for Mr. Santley that he had inherited a magnificent
+ constitution, or the consequences of this wild conflict might have been
+ disastrous. He woke late, but the brief period of rest and unconsciousness
+ had repaired the reckless waste of nervous force. Only a profound sadness
+ remained as a testimony of the terrible nature of the emotion he had
+ endured. The rest of the week passed in a sort of weary, listless stupor
+ and the same heavy sadness. When Sunday came round, he shuddered as he
+ ascended the pulpit at the recollection of that phantasmal audience to
+ which he had last preached; but his intellect was clear and sane, and he
+ kept faithfully to the written discourse spread out before him. He was not
+ surprised that Mrs. Haldane left before he had any opportunity of speaking
+ to her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had half expected as much. She regarded him with a cold, haughty
+ contempt—a contempt too passionless to permit her even to avenge the
+ insult he had offered her by exposing him to his parishioners. She knew he
+ loved her—and indeed was not this folly proof of the frantic
+ character of his love?—and she knew that total loss of her would be
+ the greatest chastisement even vindictiveness could wish to inflict upon
+ him. It would have been possible for him, he thought, to bear in silence
+ any punishment from her except this icy contempt and utter indifference.
+ If she had hated him, if she had pursued him with bitter hostility, if she
+ had disgraced him, he could have endured it; it would have been no more
+ than he merited. But that she should simply ignore him, that she should
+ not consider it worth her while even to be angry, was an intolerable
+ humiliation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of all, he still loved her! It was useless to seek to delude
+ himself into any belief to the contrary. He loved her, in defiance of
+ honour, goodness; in spite of misery and shame; in spite of divine or
+ human law; in spite of man or God. He loved her with a mad, despairing
+ passion, which he might conceal from all eyes for a little while, but
+ which he could never quell; which he felt would some day break out in a
+ frantic paroxysm that would involve both him and her in a common ruin.
+ Home, position, reputation, this life and the next—he could
+ sacrifice all for her. He could not exist without her. To see her and be
+ never seen by her was a living hell. If he were, indeed, to be for ever
+ doomed to this misery, better that he should perish at once, and have done
+ for ever with the torture of being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This alternative presented itself to the vicar not merely as one of those
+ exaggerated expressions of feeling common to many men in moments of
+ unendurable pain or depression, but as a sober reality. An existence in
+ which Mrs. Haldane took no part and shared no interest was literally to
+ him an existence more hateful than self-destruction itself. On the Monday
+ he proceeded to the neighbouring market town, and bought a revolver and a
+ packet of cartridges. He loaded the weapon on the road, and threw the
+ remaining cartridges away. That evening he spent in looking over his
+ papers, a large number of which he burned. He then sat down, and wrote for
+ some time; but when he had finished, he threw what he had written into the
+ fire. What need was there to put any explanation on record? He then took
+ from the bookcase the great poem of Lucretius, and read till a late hour.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Next morning he arose early, and seemed in better spirits than he had been
+ for some time. He told his sister that he was going to walk over to
+ Foxglove Manor, and was not certain as to when he would return. He left
+ the house, humming a tune, and set out at a brisk pace through the
+ village. The weather was bright and inspiriting. The country never before
+ seemed so full of health and gladness and joyous life. The lark was
+ singing far up in the shining blue sky; butterflies went fluttering across
+ the road; whirring flights of birds along the hedgerows preceded him all
+ the way. He looked at everything and noticed everything—the bright
+ flowers growing among the wayside weeds; the snail which had crept on to
+ the footpath, and whose shell he carefully avoided. He observed too much
+ to think; but one thought, underlying this discursive activity of mind,
+ kept him company all the while—“I have struggled and prayed; I have
+ tried to believe and to trust; I can do no more. If there be a God who is
+ concerned in man, let him now give evidence of His providence.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he reached the Manor, he was ushered into the reception-room, where
+ he was not kept long waiting. Mrs. Haldane entered the apartment, and
+ received him with a chilling courtesy. She noticed that, though he had
+ advanced eagerly at her entrance, he had not offered her his hand; and now
+ that she had bowed to him with a certain constrained grace, he stood
+ regarding her hesitatingly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have come,” he said at last, in a low, nervous voice, “to throw myself
+ on your mercy, to beg your forgiveness, to ask you once more to restore me
+ your confidence and friendship.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I freely forgive you, Mr. Santley,” she replied at once. “It is better
+ that what has taken place should be forgiven and forgotten as speedily as
+ possible. But my confidence and friendship! How can I trust you any more?
+ And I did trust and esteem you so much. I regarded you—— But I
+ will not even reproach you with having destroyed my idealization of you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Reproach me and censure me as you will,” he cried earnestly; “but do not
+ cast me away from you, do not be heartlessly indifferent to me. It lies in
+ your hands to make my life happy or miserable. It depends on you whether I
+ can live at all.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “That cannot be,” replied Mrs. Haldane, shaking her head gravely.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It is and must be,” said the vicar. “All my future, both here and
+ hereafter, hangs on your decision now. I have fought with myself, and
+ prayed to God to be delivered from my bondage; but it is in vain. No
+ answer has been vouchsafed to my supplications; no grace, no strength has
+ been granted in my need. Had I prayed to the deaf impersonal power which
+ your husband believes in, I could not have been more hopelessly unheard or
+ unheeded. The conflict is over. I am the gladiator fallen in the arena,
+ and it rests with you to give the signal of reprieve or destruction.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I do not understand you, Mr. Santley,” she said, feeling alarmed and
+ excited. “What do you ask? What would you have me do?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, what would I have you do!” he exclaimed passionately; then, checking
+ himself abruptly, he continued eagerly, “I would have you be as you were
+ before I offended you. I would have you forgive my offence.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have promised to forgive and forget it,” said Mrs. Haldane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No; do not forget it, but pardon it, and try to look upon it as more
+ venial than you now do. Oh, Ellen, had I not loved you beyond all that a
+ man values in this world, would it be possible to have so far fallen in
+ your esteem?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She frowned, and was about to interrupt him; but he went on hurriedly—“Do
+ not be angry. I will not speak to you of love again. I will only answer
+ your question. I would, as I have said, that you should forgive my
+ offence, and be the same to me as though it had never happened. Not only
+ my use in life, my happiness, my honour depend on this, but life itself. I
+ cannot exist without some share in your thoughts, in your interests, in
+ your regard. Life would be intolerable if you were to be wholly taken away
+ from me. Do I ask too much? Answer me quickly, for I am prepared for
+ either alternative. You and God—if, indeed, there be above us a God
+ who sees and cares—must now decide my course.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You frighten and bewilder me with your passion. I do not know what to
+ answer you. Indeed, I hardly know whether I understand you. I have
+ forgiven you. I bear you no ill will. I hope, indeed, that you may be
+ happy, and that you may soon find some one who will be worthier of your
+ love than I could have been. I am both sorry and ashamed of what has
+ happened, and I will try to forget it, both for your sake and my own. Have
+ I not said enough?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And the future?” he asked, with an anxious look.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “‘The future will be a continuation of the past, seeing that all is
+ forgiven and forgotten.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you will still allow me to speak to you, to see you? You will not
+ treat me with silence and indifference?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will be as I used to be,” said Ellen, with a look of doubt and
+ hesitation. “And you will <i>trust</i> me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you to be trusted, Mr. Santley?” she asked in a low voice. “You know
+ how fully I trusted you before.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you must trust me again if all is to be the same as it was. Is not
+ that our agreement?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will try to, but the result will entirely depend upon yourself.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I cannot say how thankful and grateful I am to you,” he said, extending
+ his hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She took it, and he raised hers to his lips, though she coloured and tried
+ to withdraw it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Nay, it is but a token of my gratitude and submission. I am thankful to
+ live, and you do not know how certainly you have enabled me to live.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My husband is in the laboratory,” said Mrs. Haldane, who felt uneasy, and
+ wished to bring this interview to a close.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Shall we join him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Certainly, if you wish it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They found Mr. Haldane busily engaged in writing, while the
+ sinister-looking attendant, with the dark, startling eyes, was noiselessly
+ occupied in filling a number of flasks with some mysterious decoction
+ intended for immediate experiment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ever busy!” exclaimed the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Busier than ever just now,” replied Mr. Haldane. “I am preparing a paper
+ which I intend to read on Tuesday next before the scientific congress at
+ Paris.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you going to Paris?” asked Mr. Santley, with surprise, and addressing
+ the question rather to Mrs. Haldane than her husband.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mr. Haldane is going, but I remain here.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A look of relief passed over the vicar’s face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And what is the subject of your paper, if curiosity be pardonable?” he
+ asked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, it is a chapter from the great <i>opus</i> on morals. I call it ‘The
+ Problem of Suicide.’ A singularly fascinating subject to one who has paid
+ any attention to it, I assure you. Does it happen to have fallen in your
+ line of study?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I cannot say it has.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You would find some curious generalizations here, in that case,” said Mr.
+ Haldane, pointing to the sheets of paper on his desk. “For instance, I
+ suppose you would be hardly prepared to grant that suicide, which seems a
+ barbarous and unenlightened act, is really an effect of civilization, or
+ that an act which appears more than any other an evidence of individual
+ spontaneity, is in fact the inevitable issue of universal and absolute
+ social law.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am certainly not prepared to concede that.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No; few persons unacquainted with the subject would be. Still, the facts
+ remain. The suicide who imagines he is rebelling against all law and
+ asserting his individual independence, is but illustrating the coercion of
+ the physical and psychical dispensation. Why, you shall not even choose
+ your own weapon of destruction, or select the spot in which you shall die.
+ Law will fix those apparently trivial details for you. If your suicide is
+ an Englishman, for example, he will prefer hanging to cutting and
+ stabbing, cutting and stabbing to drowning, drowning to poison, and poison
+ to firearms. With English women the order of preference is modified. A
+ third of the women, and hardly a seventh of the men, seek death by
+ drowning; while a seventh of the women poison themselves, but only a
+ fifteenth of the men. The ratios hold good from year to year—relatively
+ at least—for suicide is largely on the increase. You should look
+ into the matter for yourself. It is a most attractive social problem.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Perhaps Mr. Santley would like to look at your paper?” suggested Mrs.
+ Haldane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You shall be very welcome to see it when I return,” said the philosopher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thank you very much. I have no doubt it will be extremely interesting.
+ And when do you leave?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The day after to-morrow. I shall spend a day or two in London, and
+ possibly a week or a fortnight in Paris. Indeed, I have some notion of
+ paying a flying visit to Berlin.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That afternoon, as the vicar returned home, he paused by a pool in one of
+ the fields that skirted the high-road, and flung his revolver into it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Can it be possible,” he asked himself, “that man has no volition, no
+ independence of action; that his choice of life or death even is not a
+ choice, but a predetermined issue of mechanical forces?” He watched the
+ ripples die away on the water, and then resumed his way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are we mere automata, accomplishing not our own wills, but the secret
+ purpose of a subtle agency, of whose control we are unconscious?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gradually the problem which perplexed him gave place to another wave of
+ thought. His step became firmer and more elastic, and his face brightened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The thought which effected this change in his demeanour was Mr. Haldane’s
+ departure. What might not happen in those few days of absence? Was not Mr.
+ Haldane also accomplishing an unknown, destiny? Might not this journey be
+ providential? Or say, rather an unanticipated road to the great end?
+ Suppose Mr. Haldane should never return!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The possibilities involved in that reflection!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he thought of Mrs. Haldane. For a week, perhaps for a fortnight, she
+ would be alone at the Manor. For a fortnight? Who could foretell—perhaps
+ for ever!
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ END OF VOL. I.
+ </h3>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Foxglove Manor, Volume I (of III), by
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+</pre>
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+ </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/48471/old/48471-h.htm.2021-01-25 b/48471/old/48471-h.htm.2021-01-25 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fb081e --- /dev/null +++ b/48471/old/48471-h.htm.2021-01-25 @@ -0,0 +1,5103 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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+ <head>
+ <title>
+ Foxglove Manor, by Robert W. Buchanan
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
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+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
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+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
+ .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;}
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+ </head>
+ <body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Foxglove Manor, Volume I (of III), by Robert W. Buchanan
+
+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'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Foxglove Manor, Volume I (of III)
+ A Novel
+
+Author: Robert W. Buchanan
+
+Release Date: March 12, 2015 [EBook #48471]
+Last Updated: November 2, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOXGLOVE MANOR, VOLUME I (OF III) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger from page images generously
+provided by the Internet Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+ <div style="height: 8em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h1>
+ FOXGLOVE MANOR
+ </h1>
+ <h3>
+ A Novel
+ </h3>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert W. Buchanan
+ </h2>
+ <h4>
+ In Three Volumes, Vol. I.
+ </h4>
+ <h5>
+ London <br /> Chatto And Windos, Piccadilly <br /> 1884
+ </h5>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <b>CONTENTS</b>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> PREFATORY NOTE. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>FOXGLOVE MANOR.</b> </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. ST. CUTHBERT’S. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. AT THE VICARAGE. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. “THERE IS A CHANGE!” </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. GEORGE HALDANE. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. THE UNKNOWN GOD. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. A SICK-CALL. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. A SUMMER SHOWER. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. THE KISS. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. EDITH. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. CONSCIENCE. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. IN THE LABORATORY. </a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PREFATORY NOTE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ The following attempt at a tragedy in fiction (a tragedy, however, without
+ a tragic ending) must not be construed into an attack on the English
+ priesthood generally. I have simply pictured, in the Rev. Charles Santley,
+ a type of man which exists, and of which I have had personal experience.
+ Fortunately, such men are uncommon; still more fortunately, the clergymen
+ of, the English Establishment are for the most part sane and healthy men,
+ too unimaginative for morbid deviations.
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ ROBERT BUCHANAN.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h1>
+ FOXGLOVE MANOR.
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER I. ST. CUTHBERT’S.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>s the sweet, clear
+ voices of the surpliced choristers rose in the closing verse of the hymn,
+ and the vicar, in his white robe and violet hood, ascended the pulpit
+ steps, old Gabriel Ware, sexton and doorkeeper of St. Cuthbert’s, limped
+ across the pavement and slipped into the porch, as his custom was at
+ sermon-time on Sunday afternoons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He waited till the singing had ceased and the congregation had settled in
+ their pews; and while he listened to the vicar announcing his text—“For
+ in Him we live, and move, and have our being”—he fumbled in the
+ pockets beneath his black gown of office, and then limped noiselessly out
+ into the sunshine, where, after a glance round him, he pulled out a short
+ clay pipe, well seasoned, filled it with twist, and began his usual
+ after-dinner smoke.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was a hot, shimmering July afternoon, and it was much pleasanter to sit
+ out of doors on a tombstone, listening to the vicars voice as it came
+ though the dark lancets like a sound of running water.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Half a mile or so away, nestled in trees, was the village of Omberley,
+ with its glimpses of white walls and tiled or slated roofs. Then there
+ were soft, hazy stretches of pasture, with idyllic groupings of cattle and
+ sheep and trees. The fields of wheat and barley, turnips and potatoes, lay
+ out idle and warm, growing and taking no care, and apparently causing
+ none. The sight and smell of the land filled Gabriel with a stolid
+ satisfaction at the order of nature and the providential gift of tobacco.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was but the faintest breeze stirring, and it wafted all manner of
+ sweet odours and lulling whispers about the graveyard. Everywhere there
+ was evidence of a fervent throbbing vitality and joyousness. The soft
+ green turf which spread all round the church to the limits of the
+ churchyard, here billowing over a nameless grave, here crusting with moss
+ the base of a tombstone or a marble cross or a pillared urn, here edging
+ round an oblong plot brilliant with flowers and hothouse plants,—the
+ very turf seemed stirred by glad impulses, and quivering with a crush of
+ hurrying insect life. Daisies and buttercups and little blue and pink eyed
+ flowers danced among the restless spears of grass with a merry hardihood.
+ Laburnums and sycamores stood drowsing in the hot shining air, but they
+ were not asleep, and were not silent, A persistent undertone came from
+ among their shadowy boughs, as if the sap were buzzing through every leaf
+ and stalk. Up their trunks, toiling through the rugged ravines of the
+ rough bark, travelling along the branches, flitting from one cool leaf to
+ another, myriads of nameless winged and creeping things went to and fro,
+ and added their murmurs to the vast, vague resonance of life. A soft,
+ ceaseless whispering was diffused from the tall green spires of a row of
+ poplars which Went along the iron railing that separated the enclosure
+ from the high-road. Blue and yellow butterflies fluttered from one
+ ‘flowery grave to another; the big booming humble-bee went blundering
+ among the blossoms; a grasshopper was: singing shrilly in the bushes near
+ the railing; a laborious caravan of ants was crossing the stony wilderness
+ of the gravel path; a dragon-fly hawked to and fro beneath the sycamores;
+ small birds dropped twittering on cross or urn for an instant, flashed
+ away up into a tree, and then darted off into the fields, as though too
+ full of excitement and gamesomeness to rest more than a moment anywhere.
+ Soft fleecy masses of luminous cloud slumbered in the hot blue sky
+ overhead, and only in its remote deeps did there seem to be unimpassioned
+ quietude and a sabbath stillness—only there and in the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Notwithstanding the dazzling sunshine and the heat, the church was cool
+ and dim and fragrant. The black and red tiles of the pavement, the brown
+ massive; pillars and airy arches of sandstone, the oaken pews, the
+ spacious, sanctuary with, its wide, stone steps, affected one with a.
+ refreshing sense of coolness and comfort. The light entered soft and
+ subdued through richly stained glass, for the windows looked, not on
+ familiar breadths, of English landscape glowing and ripening in the July
+ sun, but seemed rather to open into the strangely coloured world of
+ nineteen centuries ago. The blessing of the little children, the raising
+ of Lazarus, the interview at the well with the woman of Samaria, the
+ minstrel rout about the house of the ruler whose little maid lay not dead
+ but sleeping, took the place of the mundane scenes beheld through
+ unhallowed windows. Even the unpictured lancets were filled with leaded
+ panes of crimson and blue and gold. Then there was a faint, pleasant odour
+ of incense about the building, emphasizing the contrast between the mood
+ of nature and the mood of man. St. Cuthberts was floridly ritualistic, and
+ the vicar was one of those who felt that, in an age of spiritual disquiet
+ and unbelief, a man cannot cling with too many hands to the great
+ Revelation which appeared to be daily growing more elusive, and who
+ believed that if the soul may be lost, it may also be, in a measure, saved
+ through the senses. Feigned devotions and the absence of any appeal to the
+ physical nature of man had, he was convinced, drawn innumerable souls into
+ indifference on the one hand, and into Catholicism on the other. If there
+ was a resurrection of the body as well as of the soul, surely the body
+ ought not to be abandoned as a thing accursed, from which no good can
+ come. The vicar encountered no difficulty in realize ing his views of the
+ dignity of flesh and blood at St. Cuthbert’s.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A thick, softly toned carpet lay on the broad stone steps which led up to
+ the communion table. Behind the communion table, and for some distance to
+ right and left, the sanctuary walls were hung with richly coloured
+ tapestry. The table itself—or the altar, as it was usually called—was
+ draped with violet silk, embroidered with amber crosses, and upon it stood
+ a large crucifix of brass, with vases of flowers, and massive brazen
+ candlesticks on either side. In the centre a large brass gasalier was
+ suspended from a large ring, containing an enamelled cross, and beneath it
+ hung an oil-lamp, which was kept perpetually burning. Amid all the
+ coolness and fragrance and mystical flush of colour, that little leaf of
+ flame floating in its glass cup attracted the attention of the stranger
+ most singularly. It piqued the imagination, and added an indescribable
+ feeling of hallowed sorcery to the general effect, which was that of an
+ influence too spiritual not to excite reverence, but too sensuous to be
+ considered sacred. Stepping out of the churchyard, with its throbbing
+ warmth and glad undertones of commotion, into the cool, soft-lighted,
+ artificially coloured atmosphere of the church, one might have felt as if
+ dropped into the Middle Ages, but for the modern appearance of the
+ congregation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ St. Cuthbert’s was the fashionable place of worship at Omberley, and its
+ afternoon service was always well attended, though at a glance one
+ perceived, from the chromatic effect of the pews, that the large majority
+ of the congregation were of the more emotional sex. As the vicar gave out
+ his text, his taste for the bright and beautiful must have been gratified
+ by the flowers and feathers and dainty dresses, and still more by the rows
+ of young and pretty faces which were raised towards the pulpit with such
+ varied expression of interest, affection, and admiration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Charles Santley had been Vicar of St. Cuthbert’s for little less
+ than a year. He was unmarried, just turned thirty, a little over the
+ middle height, and remarkably handsome. It was not to be wondered at that,
+ with such recommendations, the new vicar had at the very outset fascinated
+ the maids and matrons of his congregation. A bright shapely face, with
+ soft dark eyes, a complexion almost feminine in its clear flush, a broad
+ scholarly forehead, black hair slightly thinned with study on the brow and
+ at the temples, black moustache and short curling black beard,—such
+ was the face of the vicar as he stood uncovered before you. His voice was
+ musical and sympathetic; the pressure of his hand invited confidence and
+ trust; his soft dark eyes not only looked into your heart, but conveyed
+ the warmth and eagerness of his own; you felt instinctively that here you
+ might turn for help which would never be found wanting, and seek advice
+ that would never lead you astray, appeal for sympathy with a certainty
+ that you would be understood, obey the prompting to transfer the burthen
+ of spiritual distress with a sure knowledge that your self-esteem would
+ never be wounded. Of course there were ladies of a critical and censorious
+ disposition among his flock, but even these were forced to acknowledge the
+ charm of his presence and the kindliness of his disposition. Among the men
+ he was less enthusiastically popular, as was natural enough; but he was
+ still greatly liked for his frankness and cordiality, and his keen
+ intellect and sterling common sense commanded their respect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On one thing you might always reckon at St. Cuthbert’s—a thoughtful,
+ eloquent sermon, delivered in a voice full of exquisite modulations. It
+ happened often enough that the preacher forgot the capacities of his
+ hearers, and became dreamy and mystical; but, though you failed to
+ comprehend, you were conscious that the fault lay less with him than with
+ your own smaller spiritual nature. This, too, happened only in certain
+ passages, and never throughout an entire discourse. He began on the grass,
+ as the lark does, and gradually rose higher and higher in the brightening
+ heavens till your vision failed; but, if you waited patiently, he
+ descended again to earth, still singing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On this Sunday afternoon, preaching from the text in the Acts, he held his
+ hearers spell-bound at the outset. Referring to the memorable discourse in
+ which the text occurs, he conjured up before them Athens—glittering,
+ garrulous, luxurious, profligate—the Athens St. Paul had seen. The
+ vivid picture was crowded with magnificent temples, countless altars,
+ innumerable shapes of mortal loveliness. Here was the Agora, with its
+ altar of the Twelve Gods, and its painted cloisters, and its plane trees,
+ beneath whose shade were disputing groups of philosophers, in the garb of
+ their various sects. Gods and goddesses, in shining marble, in gold and
+ ivory, caught the eye wherever it fell. There were altars to Fame and
+ Health and Energy, to Modesty and Persuasion, to Pity and to Oblivion. On
+ the ledges of the precipitous Acropolis glittered the shrines of Bacchus
+ and Æscülapius, Venus, Earth, and Ceres. Over all towered the splendid
+ statue of Pallas, cast from the brazen spoils of Marathon, visible, as it
+ flashed in the sun, to the sailor doubling the distant promontory of
+ Sunium. Every divinity that it had entered into the imagination of man to,
+ conceive or the heart of man to yearn for, every deified attribute of
+ human nature, had here its shrine or its voluptuous image. “Ye men of
+ Athens, all things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in
+ religion.” It was easier, said the Roman satirist, to find a god than a
+ man in Athens. And yet these men, with all their civilization, with all
+ their art and poetry and philosophy, had not found God, and,
+ notwithstanding all the statues and altars they had erected, were aware
+ that they had not found Him; for St. Paul, as he traversed their
+ resplendent city, and beheld their devotions, had found an altar with this
+ inscription, “<i>To the Unknown God.</i>” Referring then to those “certain
+ philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics,” who encountered the
+ apostle, he briefly sketched the two great systems of Greek speculation,
+ and their influence on the morality of the age: the pantheism of the
+ Stoics, who recognized in the universe a rational, organizing soul which
+ produced all things and absorbed all things,—who perceived in
+ pleasure no good, in pain no evil,—who judged virtue to be virtue
+ and vice vice, according as they conformed to reason; the materialism of
+ the Epicureans, who perceived in creation a fortuitous concourse of atoms,
+ acknowledged no Godhead, or, at best, an unknowable, irresponsible
+ Godhead, throned in happy indifference far beyond human imptration,—taught
+ that the soul perished as the body perished, and was dissipated like a
+ streak of morning cloud into the infinite azure of the inane. Following
+ Paul as the philosophers “took him and brought him unto Areopagus,” where
+ from immemorial time the judges, seated on benches hewn out of the rock,
+ had sat under the witnessing heavens, passing sentence on the greatest
+ criminals and deciding the most solemn questions of religion, he glanced
+ down once more at the city glittering with temples and thronged with gods
+ and goddesses, and bringing into broad contrast the radiant Apollo and the
+ voluptuous Aphrodite, with the scourged and thorn-crowned figure on the
+ cross, he read the message of the apostle to the pagan world. On how many
+ altars to-day might not the words “To the Unknown God” be fittingly
+ inscribed! “In Him we live, and move, and have our being;” but how few of
+ us have “felt after” and found Him! In a strain of impassioned eloquence
+ the preacher spoke of that unseen sustaining presence, which brooded over
+ and encompassed us; of the yearning of the human heart for communion with
+ the Creator; of the cry of anguish which rose from the depths of our
+ being, when our eyes ached with straining into the night and saw nothing,
+ when our quivering hands were reached out into the infinite and clasped
+ but darkness; of the intense need we felt for a personal, tangible,
+ sympathetic Being, for an incarnation of the divinity; of those ecstatic
+ ascensions of the soul, in which man “felt after” and actually touched
+ God; and, as he spoke, his glowing words gradually ceased to convey any
+ definite meaning to the great majority of his hearers: but one face,
+ flushed with joyous intelligence, one young beautiful face, with large,
+ liquid blue eyes of worship, and with eager tremulous lips, was all the
+ while turned fixedly up to his.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seated in a little curtained nook near the organ, a slim, fair girl of two
+ and twenty watched the preacher with almost breathless earnestness. She
+ was a bright little fragile-looking blossom of a being, who seemed
+ scarcely to have yet slipped out of her girlhood. Her face was of that
+ delicate white, tinged with a spot of pink, which so often indicates a
+ consumptive constitution, but in her case this delicacy of complexion was
+ owing rather to the fineness of the material of which nature had moulded
+ her. Light fine hair, in silky confusion rather than curls, clustered
+ about her forehead and temples. Her little hands still clasped the
+ music-book from which she had been playing the accompaniment of the hymn—for
+ Edith Dove was the organist of St. Cuthbert’s—as though from the
+ outset she had been too absorbed to remember that she was holding it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Occasionally the vicar turned towards the aisle in which she sat, and his
+ glance rested on her for a moment, and each time their eyes met Edith’s
+ heart beat more rapidly, and a deeper tinge of rose-colour brightened her
+ cheeks. But Mr. Santley showed no sign of kindred emotion; he was wholly
+ absorbed in the fervid thoughts which flowed from his lips in such strains
+ of exaltation. As his eyes wandered over the congregation, however, he
+ suddenly saw another face which was turned attentively towards him, and
+ which made him pause abruptly. He stopped in the midst of a sentence. He
+ felt the action of his heart cease, and he knew that the blood was driven
+ from his cheeks. He looked dazedly down at his manuscript, but was unable
+ to find the place where his memory had failed him. For a few seconds there
+ was dead silence in the church, and the eyes of the congregation were
+ turned inquiringly towards the pulpit. Then, stammering and flushing, he
+ resumed almost at haphazard. But the enthusiasm of the preacher had
+ deserted him; his attention was distracted by a rush of recollections and
+ feelings which he could not banish; the words he had written seemed to him
+ foreign and purposeless, and it was only with a resolute effort that he
+ constrained himself to read the parallel he had drawn between the
+ pantheism and materialism of the days of St. Paul and those of our own
+ time. To the close of his sermon he never once ventured to turn his eyes
+ again in the direction of that face, but kept them fixed resolutely upon
+ his manuscript. Not till he had descended the pulpit steps and was
+ crossing the chancel, did he hazard a glance across the church towards
+ that disquieting apparition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the service was ended, and the choristers, headed by the
+ cross-bearer, had passed in procession down the nave to the vestry, the
+ vicar hastily disrobed and issued into the churchyard. As with a strange
+ fluttering hopefulness he had half anticipated, he was being waited for. A
+ lady was moving slowly about among the graves, pausing now and again to
+ read an inscription on a stone, but keeping a constant observation on the
+ church doors. As he came out of the porch, she advanced to meet him, with
+ a smile upon the face which had so terribly disconcerted him. She was a
+ most beautiful, starry-looking creature—a tall, graceful, supple
+ figure, with the exquisitely moulded head of a Greek statue; a ripe rich
+ complexion suffused with a blush-rose tint; large lovely black eyes full
+ of fire and softness; long, curved, black eyelashes; a profusion of silky
+ black hair parted in little waves on a broad, bright forehead; and a pair
+ of sweet, red lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She held out a little white hand to him, and, as he took it, their first
+ words were uttered simultaneously.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ellen!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mr. Santley!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I never dreamed,” said the vicar, excitedly, “I never dared to hope, to
+ see you again!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, the world is very small,” she replied gaily, “and people keep
+ crossing each other at the most unexpected times and in the oddest of
+ places. But I am so glad to see you. Are you doing well? You can scarcely
+ imagine how curious it was when I recognized you to-day. Of course I had
+ heard your name as our vicar, but I had no idea it could be <i>you</i>.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am sure you are not more glad than I am,” rejoined the vicar. “Are you
+ staying at Omberley? Have you friends here?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She regarded him for a moment with a mixed expression of surprise and
+ amusement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you not know that I am one of your parishioners now?” she asked, with
+ a pleasant laugh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He looked wonderingly into her dark, joyous eyes, and felt a sudden sense
+ of chill and darkness within him, as a quick intelligence of who and what
+ she now was flashed into his mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you at the Manor?” he asked, in a low, agitated voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes,” she answered, without noticing his emotion. “We arrived only
+ yesterday, and have hardly had time yet to feel that we are at home; but I
+ could not resist the inclination to see what sort of a church, and what
+ sort of a vicar,” she added, with a glance of sly candour, “we had at St.
+ Cuthbert’s. I am really so glad I came. Of course you will call and see us
+ as soon and as often as you can, will you not? Mr. Haldane will be
+ delighted, I know.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are very kind,” said the vicar, scarcely aware of what he was saying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Indeed, I wish to be so,” she replied, smiling. “Of course you know Mr.
+ Haldane?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No; I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him. He—you had gone
+ abroad before I came to Omberley.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then you have not been here long?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Not quite a year yet.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And do you like the place—and the people?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Both, very much indeed!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are not married yet, I think Mr. Haldane said?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar looked at her with a sadness that was almost reproachful as he
+ answered, “No; I have my sister living with me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “How pleasant! You <i>must</i> bring Miss Santley with you when you come,
+ will you not?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As she spoke she moved slowly towards the gateway opening on to the road,
+ where a little basket-carriage was awaiting her. He accompanied her, and
+ for a few seconds there was silence between them. Then they shook hands
+ again before she got into the carriage, and she repeated her assurance—
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am so glad to have met you, Mr. Santley!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She took the reins, and, lightly flicking the ponies with the whip,
+ flashed upon him a farewell smile from those dark, spiritual eyes and
+ laughing lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar turned back into the churchyard, and following a narrow path
+ that led across the sward through a wicket and a small beech plantation,
+ entered the Vicarage with a pale, troubled face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER II. AT THE VICARAGE.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen he reached the
+ house he found that his presence was needed at the bedside of a labourer,
+ who had met with a serious accident a day or two before, and who was now
+ sinking rapidly. Mr. Santley was a man who never begrudged time or trouble
+ in the interests of his parishioners; and, though he had yet another
+ service to attend, and was already fatigued by the work of the day, he
+ readily signified his willingness to comply with the request of the dying
+ man, and at once started for the village.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He felt at the moment that the duty placed before him would be a relief
+ from the thronging recollections and the wild promptings which had set his
+ heart and brain in a turmoil. As he went down the road, however, the face
+ of the dying man who had sent to seek his priestly aid, and the face of
+ the beautiful wife of the owner of Foxglove Manor, seemed to be striving
+ for mastery over him; he was unable to concentrate his attention on any
+ subject. His will was in abeyance, and he appeared to himself to be in a
+ sort of waking nightmare, in which the most distorted thoughts of marriage
+ and death, of a lost love and of a lost God, of the mockery of life, the
+ mockery of youth, the mockery of religion, presented themselves before him
+ in a hideous masquerade, till the function he was about to fulfil appeared
+ to him at one moment a sacrilege and at another a degrading folly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To understand in some degree the vicars mental condition, it is necessary
+ to glance back on his past life. In early manhood Charles Santley had been
+ seriously impressed with the sense of a special vocation to a religious
+ life. He was the son of a wealthy merchant, whose entire fortune had
+ perished in one of our great commercial crises, and whose death had
+ followed close upon his ruin. Up to that period Charles had been undecided
+ as to his choice of a pursuit; but the necessity of making an immediate
+ selection resulted in his devoting himself to the Church. Barely
+ sufficient had been saved from the wreck of their property to support his
+ widowed mother and his sister. For himself, he was endowed with a splendid
+ physique, a keen intellect, and indomitable energy; and he at once flung
+ himself into his new career. He supported himself by teaching until he was
+ admitted to orders, when he obtained a curacy, and eventually, through the
+ interest of some old friends of his father, he was presented with the
+ living of St. Cuthbert’s. In the course of these years of struggle,
+ however, there was gradually developing within the man a spirit which
+ threatened to render his success worse than useless to him. Ardent,
+ emotional, profoundly convinced of the eternal truths of revelation and of
+ the glorious mission of the Church, the young clergyman was at the same
+ time boldly speculative and keenly alive to the grandiose developments of
+ the modern schools of thought. It was not till he stood on the extreme
+ verge of science and looked beyond that he fully realized his position. He
+ then perceived with horror that it was no longer impossible—that it
+ was even no longer difficult—to regard the great message of
+ redemption as a dream of the world, the glorious faith of Christendom as a
+ purely ethnic mythology, morality as a merely natural growth of a natural
+ instinct of self-preservation. Indeed, the difficulty consisted in
+ believing otherwise. The Fatherhood of a personal God was slipping away
+ from his soul; the Sonship of a Saviour was melting into a fantastic
+ unreality; the conviction of a personal immortality was dissipating into
+ mental mist and darkness. The mystery of evil was growing into a fiendish
+ enigma; virtue passed him, and showed herself to be a hollow mask.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His whole nature rose in revolt against this horrible scientific travesty
+ of Gods universe. He shrank back alike from the new truths and from the
+ theories evolved from them. His faith could not stand the test of the
+ wider knowledge. If God were indeed a myth, immortality but a dream,
+ virtue an unprofitable delusion, man simply a beast gifted with speech,
+ better the old faith concerning all these—accepted though it were in
+ despite of reason and in outrage of immortal truth—than the hideous
+ simulacra of the new philosophy. He cast himself back upon the bosom of
+ the Church; he clung to her as to the garment of God; but he was powerless
+ to exorcise the spirit of scepticism. It rose before him in sacred places,
+ it scoffed at his most earnest and impassioned utterances; he seemed to
+ hear within himself cynical laughter as he stood at the bedside of the
+ dying; when he knelt to pray it stood at his ear and suggested blasphemy;
+ it converted the solemn light of the Church into a motley atmosphere of
+ superstition; it stimulated his strong animal nature to the very bounds of
+ self-restraint. Still, if he was unable to exorcise it, he had yet the
+ strength to contend with and to master it. Precisely because he was
+ sceptical he was rigid in outward doctrine, zealous for forms, and
+ indefatigable in the discharge of his clerical functions. In his
+ passionate endeavour to convince himself, he convinced his hearers and
+ confirmed them in the faith in which he was himself unable to trust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day the old conflict between the sacerdotal and the sceptical was
+ complicated by new elements of spiritual discord. After seven years of
+ hopeless separation, Charles Santley had once more stood face to face with
+ the embodied dream and inspiration of his early manhood, and had found
+ her, in the full lustre of her peerless womanhood, another man’s wife.
+ During those years he had, it was true, reconciled himself to what then
+ had been forced upon him as the inevitable, and he had sternly set himself
+ to master the problem of his existence, without any secret hope that in
+ the coming years his success might bring her within his reach; but he had
+ never forgotten her. She was to him the starry poetry of his youth. He
+ looked back to the time when he had first known and loved her, as a sadder
+ and a wiser world looks back to the Golden Age. The memory of her was the
+ ghost of an ancient worship, flitting in a dim rosy twilight about the
+ Elysian fields of memory, and, it being twilight, the fields were touched
+ with a hallowed feeling of loss and a divine sentiment of regret. And now—oh,
+ bitter irony of time and fortune!—now that, he had achieved success,
+ now that all the old gulfs which had separated them were spanned with
+ golden bridges, now that he might have claimed her and she might have been
+ proud to acknowledge the claim, she once more crossed his life—a
+ vision of beauty, a star of inspiration—and once, more he knew that
+ she was hopelessly, infinitely more hopelessly than ever, raised beyond
+ his seeking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was detained so long at the bedside of the dying man that, by the time
+ he had again reached the Vicarage, the bells were ringing for evening
+ service and the western sky was ablaze with sunset. In the church the
+ light streamed through the lancets and the painted casements, filling the
+ air with motley breadths of glowing colour, and painting pillar and arch
+ and the brown sandstone with glorious blazonry. Even in the curtained nook
+ near the organ the space was flooded with enchanted lights, and Edith Dove
+ sat beside the tall gilded instrument like a picture of St. Cecilia in an
+ illuminated missal. In the pulpit the vicar stood as if transfigured. He
+ spoke, too, as though he felt that this was the splendour of a new heaven
+ opening upon a new earth, and the glad rustle of the trees in the cool
+ breeze outside was the murmur of paradise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,” were the words of
+ his text, and throughout the fervid exposition of the apostle’s faith in
+ the resurrection the sweet, blue eyes and the eager lips of the organist
+ were turned towards the preacher. He seemed this evening, however, to be
+ unconscious of her presence. He addressed himself entirely to the
+ listeners in the pews in front of him, and never cast even a solitary
+ glance towards the aisle where she sat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the close of the service Edith found Miss Santley waiting for her at
+ the entrance. It had now been customary for several weeks past for Miss
+ Dove to go over to the Vicarage on Sunday evening and remain to supper
+ with Mr. Santley and his sister. They went slowly through the churchyard
+ together, and took the little path which led to the house. They remained
+ chatting at the wicket for a few moments, expecting the appearance of the
+ vicar. When Mr. Santley issued from the church, however, he passed quickly
+ down the gravelled walk to the high-road. He had thrown a rapid look
+ towards the plantation, and had seen the young women, but he gave no
+ indication of having observed them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why, Charles is not coming!” exclaimed Miss Santley, with surprise, as
+ she saw her brother; “he surely cannot be going down to Omberley again.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He is not going to Omberley, dear,” said Edith, who had been watching for
+ the vicar, and had been keen enough to notice the hasty glance he had cast
+ in their direction; “he is going up the road.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then wherever can he be going to? And he had not had tea yet, poor
+ fellow!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Santley stepped a few paces back into the churchyard, and stood on
+ tiptoe to catch a glimpse of him over the hedge; but the vicar had already
+ passed out of sight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Never mind, dear,” she said to Edith. “Shall we go in and have a little
+ chat by ourselves? He may have some sick call or other, and he is sure to
+ be back soon, or he would have told me where he was going. Come, you
+ needn’t look so sad,” Miss Santley continued, as she observed the
+ expression of her companion’s face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I didn’t think I was looking sad,” replied Edith, blushing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh yes, you were; dreadfully,” said Miss Santley, laughing in a bantering
+ manner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You don’t think Mr. Santley is—is not quite well?” asked Edith,
+ timidly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh no; Charles is quite well, I am sure.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Perhaps he is displeased with something,” said Edith, as if speaking to
+ herself rather than to Miss Santley.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What a little fidget you are!” said her companion, taking the girl’s arm.
+ “I know what you are thinking of. I am sure he has no cause to be
+ displeased with <i>you</i>, at any rate.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I hope not,” replied Miss Dove, brightening a little. “Only I felt a
+ misgiving. You do feel misgivings about all sorts of things, don’t you,
+ Mary, without knowing why—a sort of presentiment and an uneasy
+ feeling that something is going to happen?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Young people in love, I believe, experience feelings of that kind,” said
+ Miss Santley, with mock gravity, “Come in, you dear little goose, and
+ don’t vex your poor wee heart like that. He will be back before we have
+ got half our talk over.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar strode rapidly along the road until he reached the summit of a
+ rising ground, from which he could see two counties spread out before him
+ in fruitful undulations of field and meadow and woodland. The sunset was
+ burning down in front of him. Far away in the distant landscape were soft
+ mists of blue smoke rising from half-hidden villages, and here and there
+ flashed points of brightness where the sun struck on the windows of a
+ farmstead. On either hand were great expanses of yellowing corn swaying in
+ the cool breeze and reddening in the low crimson light. He left the road,
+ and passed through a gate into one of the fields. Following a footpath, he
+ went along the hedge till he reached a stile. Here he was alone and
+ concealed in a vast sea of rustling corn. He sat down on the top of the
+ stile, and resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands,
+ gazed abstractedly into the glowing west.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A single word which escaped him betrayed the workings of his mind:
+ “Married!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seven years ago, when Charles Santley began his struggle in life, he
+ obtained through a clerical friend a position as teacher of classics in a
+ seminary for young ladies in a small sea-side town in a southern county.
+ He found his new labour especially congenial. A handsome young professor,
+ whose attention was fixed on the Church, and who purposed to devote
+ himself to her service, was cordially-welcomed by the devout ladies who
+ conducted the establishment. They were three sisters who had been
+ overlooked in the wide yearning crowd of unloved womanhood, and who had
+ turned for consolation to the mystical passions of religion. Under their
+ care a bevy of bright young creatures were brought up as in the chaste
+ seclusion of a convent. Their impressionable natures were surrounded by a
+ strange artificial atmosphere of spiritual emotion; life shone in upon
+ them, as it were, through the lancets of a-mediaeval ecclesiasticism, and
+ their young hearts, breaking into blossom, were coloured once and for ever
+ with those deep glowing tints.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was here that the young man, in the first dawn of the romance of
+ manhood, met the beautiful girl who was now the wife of the owner of
+ Foxglove Manor. She was then turned of seventeen, and had become aware of
+ the first shy longings and sweet impulses of her nature. She was his
+ favourite pupil, and sat at his right hand at the long table when he gave
+ his lessons. He used her pen and pencil, referred to her books, touched
+ her hand with his in the ordinary work of the lesson. Her clothes touched
+ his clothes beneath the table. At times their feet met accidentally. She
+ regularly put a flower in a glass of water before his place. All these
+ trifles were the thrilling incidents of a delicious romance which the
+ school-girl was making in her flurried little heart. He, too, was not
+ insensible to the trifles which affected his passionate pupil. Her great
+ dark eyes sent electric flashes through him. Her breath reached him
+ sweeter than roses. Her beautiful dark hair rubbed against his shoulder or
+ his cheek, and he tried to prevent the hot blood from flushing into his
+ face. When their hands touched he could have snatched hers and kissed it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ellen Derwent was happily not a boarder at the establishment, but resided
+ with her aunt. Her family were wealthy country people, and Ellen, who had
+ been ailing for a little while, had been ordered to the sea-side for
+ change of air. Early in the bright mornings, and after the day’s schooling
+ was over, Ellen wandered about the sea-shore or took long walks along the
+ cliffs. Santley met her first by accident, and after that, though the
+ meetings might still be called accidental, each knew that to-morrow and
+ to-morrow and yet again to-morrow the same instinctive feeling—call
+ it a divine chance or love’s premonition—would bring them together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ah! happy, radiant days by that glad sea and in the wild loveliness of
+ those romantic cliffs! Oh, vision of flushed cheek and shining eyes, and
+ sweet red lips and throbbing bosom! Oh, dim heavenly summer dawns, when
+ the sea mists were just brightening, and the little birds were singing,
+ and the sea-side town was still half asleep, and only two lovers were
+ walking hand in hand along the green brow of the cliffs! Oh, sweet autumn
+ twilights which the shining eyes seemed to fill with dark burning lustre!
+ Oh, kisses, sweeter than ever pressed by woman’s lips before or since! Oh,
+ thrill of clasped hands and mad palpitations of loving bosoms!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The swaying corn sounded like the sea as the breeze passed over it, and
+ the-murmur broke the vicars reverie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Married!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Married? yes, married! The sweet secret could not be kept for ever, and
+ when Miss Lilburn, Ellen’s aunt, discovered it, she at once spoke to Mr.
+ Santley. She did not oppose his suit—indeed, she liked him greatly,
+ but love, after all, was no mere school-girl’s dream. Was he in a position
+ to make Ellen his wife? In any case, they must know about it at home. If
+ Mr. Derwent approved, she would be most happy that Mr. Santley should
+ visit her; but, in the meantime, it was only prudent that Ellen should
+ discontinue these pleasant rambles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had never seen Ellen since, until her face made his heart stand still
+ in the midst of his sermon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar rose from the stile with clenched hands and set teeth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Bitter, bitter!” he said, raising his face to the sky and shaking his
+ head as though he saw above him an invisible face, and spoke half in
+ exquisite pain, half in stoical endurance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER III. “THERE IS A CHANGE!”
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen Edith and Miss
+ Santley reached the Vicarage, they went into the parlour, which, besides
+ having a western exposure, commanded to a considerable distance a view of
+ the high-road along which the vicar had passed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I always think this is the pleasantest room in the house,” said Miss
+ Santley, as she drew an armchair into the recess of the open window, and
+ Edith seated herself on the couch. “Charles prefers an eastern frontage,
+ for the sake of the early morning, he says; but I am always. busy in the
+ morning, so I suppose I like the afternoon light best, when I have a
+ little time to sit and bask.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Isn’t it natural, too,” suggested Edith, “that men should prefer sunrise
+ and women sunset? Men are so active and sanguine, and have so many
+ interests to engage their attention, and women—well, as a rule—are
+ such dreamers! Is it not almost constitutional?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And when did you ever see me dreaming, may I ask?” inquired Miss Santley.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh no; you are not one of the dreamers,” replied Edith, quickly. “You
+ should have been called Martha instead of Mary.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Insinuating that I am a bit of a busybody, eh?” said Miss Santley, with a
+ sly twinkle of humour.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know I did not mean to insinuate that.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Or that you had yourself chosen the better part, eh?” she continued
+ gaily.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith coloured deeply, and cast her eyes on the floor, while an expression
+ of pain passed across her face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Nay, my dear, do not look hurt. You know that was only said in jest.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You cannot tell how such jests hurt me,” replied the girl, her lips
+ beginning to tremble.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Even between our two selves?” asked Miss Santley, taking Edith’s hand
+ gently and stroking it with both of hers. “You know, my dear little girl,
+ how I love you, and how pleased I was when I discovered the way in which
+ that poor little heart of yours was beating. You know that there is no one
+ in the world whom I would more gladly—ay, or a thousandth part so
+ gladly—take for a sister. Don’t you, Edith? Answer me, dear.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes,” replied the girl, letting her head hang upon her bosom, and feeling
+ her face on flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And have I not tried to help you? I know Charles is fond of you—I
+ am sure of that. I have eyes in my head, my dear, though they are not so
+ young and pretty as yours. And I know, too, that a little while ago he was
+ anxious to know what I would say if he should propose to take a wife. I
+ shall be only too pleased when he makes up his mind. It will relieve me of
+ a great deal of care and anxiety. And he could not in the wide world
+ choose a better or a dearer little girl.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Santley was not ordinarily of a demonstrative disposition, but as she
+ uttered those last words she drew Edith towards her and kissed her on the
+ forehead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar’s sister was some twelve years his senior. A stout, homely,
+ motherly little woman, with plain but pleasing features, brown hair, a
+ shrewd but kindly expression, clear grey eyes, and a firm mouth and chin,
+ she was as unlike the Vicar in personal appearance as she was unlike him
+ in character and temperament. This family unlikeness, however, had had no
+ prejudicial effect on their mutual affection, though in Miss Santley’s
+ case it was the source of much secret uneasiness on her brother’s account.
+ As unimaginative as she was practical, she was at a loss to understand her
+ brother’s emotional mysticism and dreamy idealism; but her knowledge of
+ human nature made her timorously aware of the dangers which beset the
+ combination of a splendid physique with a glowing temperament which was
+ almost febrile in its sensuous impulsiveness. She was spared the torture
+ of sharing that darker secret of unbelief; but she was sufficiently
+ conscious of the strong fervid nature of the vicar, to feel thankful that
+ Edith had made a deep impression on him, and that when he did marry it
+ would be a bright and congenial young creature who would be worthy of him
+ and attached to herself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “So why should it hurt you, if I do jest a little?” asked Miss Santley, as
+ she kissed Edith. “Love cannot always be transcendental, otherwise two
+ people will never come closely together. The best gift a couple of lovers
+ can possess in common, is a capacity for a little fun and affectionate
+ wit. Your solemn lovers are always misunderstanding each other, and
+ quarrelling and making it up again.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But we are not lovers yet, Mary,” said Edith in a timid whisper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Not yet, perhaps; but you will be soon, if I am capable of forming any
+ opinion.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Edith replied with a sigh; and her soft blue
+ eyes filled with tears. Then raising her eyes imploringly to Miss Santley,
+ and nervously taking her hand, she continued: “Oh, Mary, do not think me
+ too forward and eager and unwomanly. Do not judge me too hardly. I know a
+ girl should not give her heart away till she is asked for it. But I cannot
+ help it—I love him—I love him so! I have done all I could to
+ prevent myself from loving him, but it is no use—oh! it is no use.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She burst into a paroxysm of passionate sobbing, and Miss Santley, without
+ saying a word, put her arms about her and softly caressed her soft flaxen
+ hair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The outburst was gradually subdued, and Edith, with a hot glowing face
+ hidden on her friend’s shoulder, was too ashamed to change her position.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you feel better now, dear? asked Miss Santley in a kindly voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, Mary, are you not ashamed of me—disgusted?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Santley replied in a woman’s way with another kiss, and again fondled
+ the girl’s head.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After a pause of a few moments, she gently raised her face and regarded it
+ affectionately.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You must come upstairs and wash away those tell-tales before he returns.
+ And”—she added a little hesitatingly—“will you not trust me
+ with the cause of all this trouble?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am afraid you will laugh at me, dear, it must seem such a foolish cause
+ to you. And I know you will say it was all simply my fancy.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What was it?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know, dear, where I sit in church?” Edith began, nervously playing
+ with the lace on Miss Santley’s dress. “Well, he always used to turn twice
+ or thrice in my direction during the sermon. I used to think he did it
+ because he knew I was there. And he did it this afternoon. But in the
+ evening he never looked once during the whole time.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Santley began to smile in spite of herself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then when he came out of the church he saw you and me waiting for him—I
+ saw him give one single sharp look—and then he went on as if he had
+ not perceived us. He would not have gone away like that, Mary, if I had
+ not been with you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And is that all?” inquired Mary as Edith paused.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I think it is quite enough,” the latter replied sorrowfully. “It means
+ that he is tired of me; he was displeased that I was with you; he did not
+ want to speak to me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My dear girl, all this is simply silly fancy; you will make your whole
+ life miserable if you imagine things in this way.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I knew you would say that; but you do not understand. I hardly understand
+ myself; but I know what I say is true. You remember old Harry Wilson down
+ in the village—he has a wooden leg, you know, but when there is
+ going to be a bad change of weather, he says he can feel it in the foot he
+ has lost; and he is always right. I think I am like him, dear; I have lost
+ something, and it makes me feel when there is a change, long before the
+ storm breaks.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “All this is nothing but nonsense, my little woman!” said Miss Santley
+ reassuringly. “Come with me upstairs, and let us make ourselves
+ presentable.” When Edith had bathed her face, the two came downstairs
+ again, but instead of returning to the parlour they went into the library.
+ This was specially the vicar’s room, and, more than any other, it
+ indicated the tastes and character of its occupant. The whole house,
+ indeed, was tinged with the mediaeval colouring of the church, and in all
+ parts of it you came upon indications of the ecclesiastical spirit of the
+ owner; but here the vicar had given fullest expression to his fancy, and
+ the room had as much the appearance of an oratory as of a library. At one
+ end a small alcove jutted out into the plantation, and the windows were
+ filled with stained glass. On the walls hung several of Raphael’s
+ cartoons; on the mantelpiece stood, under glass, a marble group of The
+ Dead Christ; the furniture, which was of carved oak, suggested the stalls
+ in the chancel; the brass gasalier and brackets were of ecclesiastical
+ design; and, lastly, the library shelves were solemnly weighted with long
+ rows of theology, sermons, and Biblical literature in several languages.
+ In a separate bookcase, which was kept locked, were gathered together a
+ number of scientific works and volumes of modern speculative philosophy. A
+ third bookcase was devoted to history, poetry, travels, and miscellaneous
+ works. The great bulk of the library, however, was clerical, and the vicar
+ had within arm’s reach a fair epitome of all that the good men of all ages
+ and many countries had discovered regarding the mystery of the world and
+ the relationship of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In one corner of the room stood a tall richly carved triangular cupboard
+ of black oak, and it too, like the bookcase of science, was kept
+ perpetually locked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Edith entered the room her eyes fell upon it, and turning to her
+ companion she asked—
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, Mary, have you discovered the skeleton yet?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No,” replied Miss Santley, with a laugh. “Charles is forgetful enough in
+ some things, but he has never yet left the key in that lock. I once asked
+ him what it was he concealed so carefully, but he refused to satisfy my
+ curiosity; so I resolved to trust to chance and his carelessness. I have
+ waited so long, however, that my curiosity has at last been tired out. I
+ don’t suppose, after all, it is anything worth knowing.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And why does he always keep this bookcase locked too? The books all look
+ so fresh and new, and they are much more attractive than those dusty old
+ fellows any one can look into. I should like to read several of those, one
+ hears so much about them. There is Darwin, ‘The Descent of Man’—I
+ have read articles about that book in the magazines, and I know he
+ believes Adam and Eve were apes in Paradise or something like that.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, my dear, Charles would never allow you to read those books on any
+ account. They are all dreadfully wicked and blasphemous. He only reads
+ them himself to refute them and to be able to show how false and dangerous
+ they are.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith, who had approached the window, now suddenly started back, and a
+ bright flush rose to her face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Here is Mr. Santley, Mary! How pale and wearied he looks!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A moment or two later the vicar entered the library. At the sight of Miss
+ Dove he paused for an instant, and then advancing, held out his hand to
+ her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You here, Miss Edith!” he said coldly. “How are you, and how is your
+ aunt?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not wait for an answer, but went to his writing-table and sat down.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The two women exchanged glances of surprise, and Edith’s face grew sad and
+ white.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you not well, Charles?” his sister asked, going up to him and looking
+ solicitously into his face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am not very well this evening,” replied the vicar; “it is the weather,
+ I think. If Miss Edith will excuse me, I think I will leave you and lie
+ down. I feel tired.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He rose again abruptly, and Edith stood regarding him with large, wistful
+ eyes. He moved towards the door, and then suddenly stopped and turned to
+ her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Good evening,” he said once more, holding out his hand and speaking in a
+ cold, distant manner. “Present my compliments to your aunt.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I hope you will be well in the morning,” said Edith, timidly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thanks. Yes; I expect I shall be all right again after a little rest.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He turned and left her, and Miss Santley, glancing at her significantly,
+ followed him to his room.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He has over-exerted himself to-day,” said Mary a little later, as she
+ accompanied Miss Dove to the garden gate. “He had a sick call in the
+ afternoon, and was unable to take his usual rest. You will excuse my not
+ accompanying you home, will you not?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh certainly,” said Edith. “I hope it is nothing serious. Would you not
+ like to see Dr. Spruce? I can call, you know.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He says he does not need the doctor; he knows what is the matter with
+ him, and only requires rest. Good night, dear! I am so sorry I cannot go
+ part of the way with you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do not think of that,” said Edith, shaking hands. “It is not late, and
+ you must not leave him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sunset had lowered down to its last red embers, but it was still quite
+ light as Edith turned away from the Vicarage gate. She proceeded slowly
+ down the road towards the village for a few moments, and then paused and
+ looked back. No one was on the road. Retracing her steps, she passed the
+ Vicarage at a quick pace, and took the direction which the vicar had taken
+ an hour before. Strangely enough, she stopped at the top of the rising
+ ground where he had stopped; went through the same gate, into the same
+ field, and, following the same path, reached the stile on which he had
+ sat. Here she sat down, with the great sea of corn whispering and
+ murmuring about her, and the distant landscape growing-gradually more and
+ more indistinct in the bluish vapour of the twilight. Alone and hidden
+ from observation, she sat on the step with her arms on the cross-bar of
+ the stile and her head laid on them, weeping bitterly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have lost something, and it makes, me feel when there is a change!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER IV. GEORGE HALDANE.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he low-lying
+ landscape had vanished in the twilight, and the stars were twinkling in
+ the clear blue sky before Edith rose, dried her eyes, and began to return
+ homeward. The moon had risen, but had yet scarcely freed itself from the
+ tops of the dark woods, through which it shone round and ruddy. As she
+ passed the Vicarage, she paused and looked up at the windows. She felt
+ prompted to steal quietly up to the door and inquire whether Mr. Santley
+ was any better, but a fear arising from many causes held her back.
+ Besides, the house was in darkness, and every one seemed to have retired
+ to rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since Edith had been in the habit of visiting the Vicarage, this was the
+ first occasion on which she had returned home alone. Unreasonable as she
+ acknowledged the suspicion to be, she could not rid herself of the belief
+ that Mr. Santleys indisposition had been, assumed as an excuse for
+ avoiding her. She strove to convince herself that she was foolishly
+ sensitive and jealous, to hope that the change in the vicars manner was
+ but an illusion of her excited fancy, to feel confident that when she saw
+ him to-morrow she would recognize how childish she had been.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Dove was exceedingly fond of music, and during the week she was
+ accustomed to spend hours alone in the church, giving utterance to her
+ thoughts, and feelings in dreamy voluntaries, which were the fugitive
+ inspiration of the moment, or filling the cool, richly lighted aisles with
+ the impassioned strains of Mozart, Haydn, and Mendelssohn. The sound of
+ the organ could be heard at the Vicarage, and Mr. Santley had been in the
+ habit of going into the church, and conversing with her while she played.
+ It was with the hope that one of his favourite pieces would again bring
+ him to her that, during the afternoon of the following day, Edith took her
+ seat at the organ. With nervous, eager fingers she swept the key-board,
+ and sent her troubled heart into the yearning anguish and clamorous
+ impetration of the <i>Agnus Dei</i> of Haydn’s No. 2. When she had
+ finished she rested for a little, and glanced expectantly down the aisle;
+ but no footstep disturbed the quiet of the place. She then turned to
+ another of the vicar’s favourites—a <i>Gloria</i> of Mozart’s. The
+ volumes of throbbing sound vibrated through the stained windows, and
+ floated across the bright churchyard to the Vicarage; but Ediths hope was
+ not realized. She played till she felt wearied, rather with the
+ hopelessness of her task than with the physical exertion; but the
+ schoolboy who blew the organ for her was exhausted, and when she saw how
+ red and hot he looked, she closed the instrument and dismissed him. Every
+ day that week she repeated her experiment, but her music had apparently
+ lost its magical influence. The vicar never came. She called thrice to see
+ Miss Santley, but each time he was away from home. Once she saw him in the
+ village, and her heart began to beat violently as he approached; but they
+ were on different sides of the street, and instead of crossing over to
+ her, as he had always done hitherto, he merely smiled, raised his hat, and
+ passed on. Sunday came round at length, and she looked forward with a sad,
+ painful wonder to the customary visit in the evening.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was a bright, breezy sabbath morning, and the great limes and sycamores
+ which buried Foxglove Manor in a wilderness of billowy verdure, rolled
+ gladsomely in the sun, and filled the world with a vast sealike <i>susurrus</i>.
+ On the stone terrace which ran along the front of the mansion the master
+ of the Manor was lounging, with a cigar in his mouth, and a huge
+ deer-hound basking at his feet; while in the shadow of the room his wife
+ stood at an open French window, conversing with him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane was a tall, broad-shouldered, powerful man of about forty
+ years of age. His face, especially in repose, was by no means handsome.
+ His grave, large, strongly marked features expressed decision, daring, and
+ indomitable force. His forehead was broad, and deeply marked with the
+ perpendicular lines of long mental labour. The poise of his head suggested
+ a habit of boldly confronting an opponent. His short hair and closely
+ trimmed beard were touched with gray, and gave a certain keenness and
+ frostiness to his appearance. A grim, self-sufficing, iron-natured man,
+ one would have said, until one had looked into his bright blue-gray eyes,
+ which lit up his strong, rugged face with an expression of frankness and
+ dry humour.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My dear Nell,” he said at length, in answer to the persistent persuasion
+ of his wife, “do not be cross. There are two things in the world which I
+ abhor beyond all others: a damp church and a dry sermon. Invite your vicar
+ as often as you please. I will do my best to entertain him; but do not
+ press me to sit out an interminable farrago of irritating platitudes in a
+ chilly, straight-backed pew.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I assure you, George, you will be charmed with him, if you will only let
+ me prevail on you to come.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why cannot you Christians dispense with incense, and allow smoking
+ instead—at least during the sermon?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane made a little grimace of horror.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You would then have whole burnt offerings dedicated with a devout and
+ cheerful heart.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “George, you are shockingly profane! I see it is no use urging you any
+ further; but I did think you would have put yourself to even some little
+ inconvenience for my sake.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “For your sake, Nell!” replied Mr. Haldane, laughing. “Why did you not say
+ so sooner? You know I would do anything on those terms. Have I not often
+ told you the married philosopher has but one moral law—to do his
+ wife’s will in all things.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then you will accompany me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Certainly I will.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are a dear, good old bear,” exclaimed Mrs. Haldane, slipping on to
+ the terrace and caressing his head with both hands. “But you know you <i>are</i>
+ a bear, and you will try for once to be nice and good-natured, will you
+ not? And you will not be cold and cynical with him because he is ideal and
+ enthusiastic? And if you do not acknowledge that he is a delightful
+ preacher, and that the dear little church is charming——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You will not ask me to go again?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I was going to say that, but it will be wiser to make no promises. You
+ know, dear, you should go to church, if it were only for the sake of
+ giving a good example; and it is my duty to try and persuade you to go.
+ And oh, George, seriously I do wish you could feel that it drew you nearer
+ to God; that where two or three are gathered together, He is in the midst
+ of them. Now, do not smile in that hard, derisive way. I know I cannot
+ argue with you, but if I cannot reply to your reasoning, you cannot
+ convince my heart. I do believe, in spite of all logic, that I have a
+ heavenly Father who loves and watches over me and you too, dear; and I
+ should be wretched——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My dear little woman,” said Mr. Haldane, taking both her hands in one of
+ his, “you have no cause to be wretched. I have no wish to deprive you of
+ your belief in a heavenly Father. With women the illusions of the heart
+ last longer than with men; and perhaps, in these days of change and
+ innovation, it is as well that women have still a creed to find comfort
+ in. For my part, I confess I hardly understand what it is attracts you in
+ your religion. The civilized world, so far as I can see, has outgrown the
+ golden age of worship, and <i>latria</i> is one of the lost arts.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The presence of the master of Foxglove Manor created considerable surprise
+ and curiosity among the congregation at St. Cuthbert’s. Though he had
+ lived in the neighbourhood for the last twelve years, this was the first
+ time he had been seen inside a church. Much more attention was paid during
+ the service to the beautiful lady of the Manor, and the grim, powerful man
+ who sat beside her, than was in keeping with the sacred character of the
+ occasion. Mr. Haldane, on his part, though he did his best by imitating
+ the example of his wife to conform to the ritual, was keenly critical of
+ the whole service. The dim religious light of the painted windows pleased
+ his eye, but failed to exercise any influence on his feelings. The
+ decorations of the church seemed to him insincere and artificial. He
+ missed in the atmosphere that sense of reverence which he had experienced
+ in the old cathedrals in Spain and Italy. The ceremonies appeared dry,
+ joyless, and uninteresting, and as he watched the congregation bowing,
+ kneeling, praying, singing, pageants of the jubilant mythic worship of the
+ ancient world crowded upon his imagination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What are you thinking of?” his wife once whispered, as she caught a
+ sidelong glance at his abstracted face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Diana at Ephesus!” he replied, with a curious twinkle in his keen gray
+ eyes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Once or twice during the sermon a saturnine smile passed across his face,
+ and Mrs. Haldane pressed his foot by way of warning; but otherwise he
+ listened gravely throughout, with his large, strongly marked features
+ turned to the preacher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, have you been interested, dear?” asked Mrs. Haldane, when the
+ service was over, and they were waiting in the churchyard for the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes,” he replied drily; “your vicar is interesting.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Now, what do you mean by that?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He will repay study, my dear.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane looked sharply into her husband’s face, but was dissatisfied
+ with her scrutiny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You don’t like him?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have no reason yet to like or dislike him. In a general way, I should
+ prefer to say that I do like him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But what do you mean by your remark that he will repay study?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Perhaps you will not understand me,” he answered thoughtfully. “Your
+ vicar has a soul, Nell.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “So have we all, I suppose.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “At least he believes he has one,” said Mr. Haldane, with a slight shrug
+ of his shoulders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And he is trying to save it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We all are, I hope.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I beg your pardon, Nell; the phenomenon in these days is a psychological
+ rarity, and, being rare, is naturally interesting. It is one of the
+ obscure problems of cerebration. Ah! here comes your vicar.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With a bright smile Mrs. Haldane advanced to meet him, and cordially shook
+ hands with him. “You must allow me to introduce you to my husband. George,
+ Mr. Santley.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My wife tells me,” said Mr. Haldane, as they shook hands, “that she was
+ an old pupil of yours.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes,” said the vicar, with an uneasy glance towards her, “many years
+ ago.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It is a little curious,” continued Mr. Haldane, “how people lose sight of
+ each other for years, and then are unexpectedly thrown together into the
+ same small social circle, after they have quite forgotten each others
+ existence.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar winced at the last words, but replied with a faint smile, “The
+ great world is, after all, a very little world.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ah, my dear sir, I see I have started a familiar train of thought—the
+ littleness of the world,” said Mr. Haldane, with a dry light in his eyes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you fear I may improve the occasion?” asked the vicar a little
+ coldly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Pray do not misunderstand my husband,” interposed Mrs. Haldane. “He was
+ delighted with your sermon to-day; and I do not wonder, for you have the
+ power of appealing to the heart and raising the mind beyond earthly
+ things. It was only a few moments ago that he told me he was deeply
+ interested.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I perceived that he was amused once or twice,” replied the vicar, with a
+ smile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I confess that I may have smiled at one or two points in your discourse.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Excuse my interrupting you,” said Mrs. Haldane; “will you not walk? You
+ can spare time to accompany us a little way?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Santley bowed, and Mrs. Haldane signed to the coachman to drive on
+ slowly towards the village.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “For example,” resumed Mr. Haldane, “I see you still stick to the old
+ chronology and the mythic Eden.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Certainly I do.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And yet you should be aware that at least a thousand years before the
+ date you fix for the creation of Adam, tribes of savage hunters and
+ fishers peopled the old fir-woods of Denmark, and set their nets in the
+ German Ocean.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It may eventually prove necessary to revise the chronology of the Bible,”
+ replied the vicar; “but there is at present too much conflict of opinion
+ among your archaeologists to decide on the absolute age of these tribes.
+ After all, the question is one of minor importance.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Granted. But you cannot say the same of the efficacy of prayer.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane laid her hand on her husband’s arm, and stopped abruptly.
+ “Ask Mr. Santley to dinner, George, and then you can discuss as long and
+ as profoundly as you like; but I will not allow you to argue now. Besides,
+ I want to talk to Mr. Santley.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane laughed good-naturedly. “Just as you please, my dear. If Mr.
+ Santley will favour us with his company, I shall be very glad. Your
+ predecessor was a frequent visitor at our house. A jovial, rubicund
+ fellow, whose troubles in this life were less of the world and the devil
+ than of the flesh! A fat, ponderous man and a Tory, as all fat men are; a
+ sort of Falstaff <i>in pontificalibus</i>; a man with a wit and a shrewd
+ palate for old port. Poor fellow! he was snuffed out like a candle. One
+ could have better spared a better man.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Will you come to-morrow?” asked Mrs. Haldane; “and, if your sister can
+ accompany you, will you bring her? You will excuse our informality and so
+ short a notice.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I shall be very happy to call tomorrow.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then, if you can spare me a few moments I will have a better opportunity
+ of speaking to you. I must learn all about the parish, and I have a whole
+ catechism of questions to ask you. You will come to-morrow, then?” she
+ concluded, with one of those flashing looks from her great dark eyes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He watched them drive away with that look burning in his brain and the
+ pressure of her hand tingling through every nerve. He stood gazing after
+ her with a passionate light in his eyes and an eager, yearning expression
+ on his pale, agitated face. This was the woman he had lost, and now they
+ were again thrown together in the same small social circle, after she had
+ completely forgotten his existence! Those words of her husband had cut him
+ to the quick. Could she so soon, so easily, so completely have forgotten
+ him? It seemed incredible. If she had used any such expression to her
+ husband, was it not rather to forestall any jealous suspicion on his part?
+ Clearly she had not divulged the secret of those schoolgirl days. <i>He</i>
+ knew not the story of that sweet, imperishable romance; those burning
+ kisses and unforgotten vows had been hidden from him; and in that
+ concealment the vicar found a strange, subtle pleasure. It was at least
+ one tie between him and her; one secret in common in which her husband had
+ no share.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER V. THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he vicar was
+ standing close beside the village school, and as he turned to go back home
+ he saw the schoolmistress in the doorway of her little cottage. He started
+ as though she had been looking into his heart, instead of watching the
+ carriage as it bowled along towards the village. Without a moment’s
+ hesitation, however, he opened the schoolyard gate and went up to her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, Miss Greatheart, how are you to-day?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dora, a bright, merry-looking woman of about thirty, dropped a curtsy, and
+ invited the vicar into the house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thank you, no; I must not stay. I have just been speaking, as you have
+ seen, to my new parishioners. I call them new, though I suppose they are
+ older in the parish than I am myself.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Old as they are, this is the first time I ever set eyes on Mr. Haldane in
+ our church, sir. His pretty wife must have converted him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then they have not been long married?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Somewhere about two years, I should think. All last year they were away
+ in Egypt and Palestine; and perhaps now that he’s seen the Land, he
+ believes in the Book.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Indeed!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Seeing’s believing, you know, sir; and if all tales be true, he used not
+ to believe in anything from the roof upward. Oh, you may well look
+ shocked, sir, but he was quite an atheist and an infidel; but you see he
+ was so rich that the gentry round about didn’t care to give him the go-by.
+ I suppose you haven’t been to the Manor yet, sir? The old vicar, Mr. Hart,
+ was always there. People did say he paid more court to the people at the
+ Manor than he should have done, considering the need for him in the
+ parish; and when Mr. Hart got his second stroke, there were those that
+ said it was a judgment on him for high living, and the company he kept.
+ But you know, sir, how folks’ tongues will wag.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Is the Manor far from here? Of course I have heard of the place, but I
+ have never been near it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It’s about four miles, sir, and a lonely place it is, and dismal it must
+ be in winter, with miles of wood about it. In summer it is not so bad, but
+ it is awfully wild and solitary. I went over the grounds once, years ago.
+ I became acquainted with one of the housemaids, you see, sir—quite a
+ nice young person—and she invited me to tea. I remember it was
+ getting dusk when I left, and she took me through the woods. Dear me, what
+ a fright I got! I happened to look up, and there was a man, quite a giant,
+ standing among the trees. I screamed, and would have run had not Jane—that
+ was the maid, sir—laughed, and said it was only a statue. And so it
+ was, for we went right up to it. All the woods are full of statues—quite
+ improper and rude, and rather frightening to meet in the dusk. But now he
+ is converted, Mrs. Haldane will have them all taken away, I should think.
+ I don’t believe the place is haunted, though there are some strange
+ stories told about it; but I do know that the chapel—there is an old
+ chapel close by the house—is shut up, and no one goes near it but
+ Mr. Haldane and his valet—a dark foreign person, with such eyes!
+ Queer tales are told about lights being seen in it at all hours of the
+ night, and some of the old folk believe that if any one could look in they
+ would see that the foreign valet had horns and a cloven foot, and that his
+ master was worshipping him. I think that’s all nonsense myself; but
+ there’s no doubt Mr. Haldane used to be dreadfully wicked, and an
+ atheist.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “If he was so very bad,” said the vicar, smiling, “surely it was strange
+ that Mr. Hart used to associate with him so much.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, you see, sir, he was always liberal, and kept a good table, and Mr.
+ Hart was a cheerful liver. Then Mr. Haldane was always ready with his
+ purse when there was a hard winter, or the crops were bad, or any poor
+ person was ill.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I see, I see,” said the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But his charity could not do him any good, people said, when he didn’t
+ believe there was a God, or that he had a soul.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “So they didn’t consider it worth while to be thankful?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I don’t think they did, sir.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And was Mrs. Haldane staying at the Manor the first year of their
+ marriage?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes; he brought her back with him after the honeymoon.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And do they speak as kindly of her in the village as they do of her
+ husband?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, indeed, sir, they worship her. Even old Mother Grimsoll, who said she
+ wanted to make a charity woman of her when you bought her that scarlet
+ cloak last winter, has a good word for Mrs. Haldane. She isn’t the least
+ bit conceited, and she knows that poor people have their proper pride; and
+ when she helps any one she makes them feel that they are doing her a
+ favour. When Mr. Hart was alive she used to go round with him, devising
+ and dispensing charities. It’s only a pity she is married to—to—“—and
+ Miss Greatheart beat impatiently on the ground with her foot in the effort
+ to recall the word—“to an agnostic. Mr. Hart said he wasn’t an
+ atheist, but an agnostic, though I dare say if the truth were known one is
+ worse than the other.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are not very charitable, Miss Greatheart; come, now, confess,” said
+ the vicar, good-humouredly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Perhaps not, sir; but I have no patience with atheists and agnostics.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “An atheist,” continued the vicar, “is a person who does not believe in a
+ God; an agnostic is one who merely says he does not know whether there is
+ a God or not.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Doesn’t know!” exclaimed Dora, indignantly. “Wherever was the man brought
+ up?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That evening, as Miss Santley and Edith went across from the church to the
+ Vicarage together, the vicar joined them, and Miss Dove remained to supper
+ as usual. The time passed pleasantly enough; but Edith was conscious of a
+ certain restraint, in the conversation, a curious chilliness in the
+ atmosphere. When at length she rose to go home, the vicar went to the
+ window, and looked out for a few seconds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I think, Mary, you might accompany us; and when we have seen Miss Edith
+ home, we could take a turn round together. It is a beautiful night.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mary nodded assent, and Edith felt her heart sink within her. She was
+ certain now that he was avoiding her. As she followed Miss Santley
+ upstairs to put on her things, a sudden thought flashed upon her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I shall be with you in a moment, Mary,” she said; “I have dropped my
+ handkerchief, I think.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She ran back to the parlour, and met the vicar face to face as he paced
+ the room.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She stood still, and looked at him silently for a moment. She had taken
+ him by surprise, and he too stood motionless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well,” he said at last, with a faint smile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you hate me, Charles?” she asked in a low, steady voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Hate you! Why should I hate you, my dear Edith? What should put such
+ thoughts——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have only a few seconds to speak to you,” Miss Dove continued hastily.
+ “Answer me truly and directly. You do not hate me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I shall never hate you, dear.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “‘Why do you avoid me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have I avoided you?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know you have. Why?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have not avoided you, Edith.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you still love me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know I do.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “As much as ever you did?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “As much as ever.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Can I see you to-morrow—alone?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know I am going to the Manor.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I know,” said Edith, with a slight tone of bitterness. “You will return
+ in the evening, I suppose? I shall wait for you on the road till nine
+ o’clock.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I may be detained, you know, Edith.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then I shall be practising in the church on Tuesday afternoon as usual.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Very well,” he assented.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Am I still to trust you, Charles?” she asked, raising her soft blue eyes
+ earnestly to his face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes?” She dwelt upon the word, still looking fondly up to him. He
+ understood her, and bent over and kissed her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You will try to return home tomorrow before nine? I have been miserable
+ all this week, and I have so much to say to you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will try to see you,” said the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I must run now; Mary will wonder what has kept me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great woods about Foxglove Manor were certainly lovely, and in the
+ winter, with the snow on their black branches, and snow on the fallen
+ leaves and the open spaces between the clumps of forestry, the place might
+ have seemed dreary and dismal; but on this July afternoon the vicar
+ experienced an indescribable sense of buoyancy and enlargement among these
+ vast tossing masses of foliage. Their incessant murmur filled the air with
+ an inarticulate music, which recalled to his memory the singing pines of
+ Theocritus and the voices of the firs of the Hebrew prophets. A spirit of
+ romance for ever haunts the woodland, as though the olden traditions of
+ dryad and sylvan maiden had not yet been wholly superseded by the more
+ accurate report of science. In the skirts of the great clusters of timber,
+ cattle were grazing in groups of white and red; in the open spaces of
+ pasture land between wood and wood, deer were visible among the patches of
+ bracken. In the depths of the forest ways he came upon the colossal
+ statues copied from the old masters; and at length, at a turn of the
+ shadowy road, he found himself in view of the mansion—an ancient,
+ square mass of brown sandstone, stained with weather and incrustations of
+ moss and lichens, and covered all along the southern exposure with a dense
+ growth of ivy. The grounds immediately in front were laid out in formal
+ plots for flowers and breadths of turf traversed by gravelled pathways. A
+ little withdrawn from the house stood the ruined chapel of which the
+ schoolmistress had spoken. The ivy had invaded it, and scaled every wall
+ to the very eaves, while patches of stonecrop and houseleek, which had
+ established themselves on the slated roof, gave it a singular aspect of
+ complete abandonment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Mr. Santley entered one of the walks which led to the terraced
+ entrance, Mrs. Haldane, who had observed his approach, appeared on the
+ stone steps, and descended to meet him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “How good of you to come so early!” she exclaimed. “George will be
+ delighted. He is in his laboratory, experimenting as usual. We shall join
+ him, after you have had some refreshment.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No refreshment for me, thank you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you quite sure? You must require something after so long a walk.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Nothing really, I assure you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, I shall not press you, as we shall have dinner soon. Shall we go to
+ Mr. Haldane? Have you visited the Manor before—not in our absence?
+ How do you like it?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I envy you your magnificent woods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes; are they not charming? And you will like the house, too, when you
+ have seen it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you not find it dull, however?” asked the vicar, looking into her face
+ with an expression of keen scrutiny. “You are still young—in the
+ blossom of your youth—and society must still have its attractions
+ for you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “One enjoys society all the more after a little seclusion.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No doubt.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And we have just returned, you must recollect, from a whole year of
+ wandering and sight-seeing, so that it is a positive relief to awaken
+ morning after morning and find the same peaceful landscape, the same quiet
+ woods about one.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “That is very natural; but the heart does not long remain content with the
+ unchanging face of nature, however beautiful it may be. Even the best and
+ strongest require sympathy, and when once we become conscious of that want——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have you begun to feel it?” she asked suddenly, as he paused.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I suppose it is the inevitable experience of a clergyman in a country
+ parish,” he replied, with a smile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, I suppose it is. So few can take an interest in your tastes, and
+ aspirations, and intellectual pleasures, and pursuits. Is not that so?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It may seem vanity to think so.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh no; I think not. The people you meet every day are mostly concerned in
+ their turnips or the wheat or their cattle, and their talk is the merest
+ village gossip. It must indeed be very depressing to listen day after day
+ to nothing but that. One has, of course, a refuge in books.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But books are not life. The daydreams of the library are a poor
+ substitute for the real action of a mans own heart and brain.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then one has also the great fields of natural science to explore. I think
+ you will find the work of my husband interesting, and if you could turn
+ your mind in the same direction, you would find in him inexhaustible
+ sympathy.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As she spoke, they reached the low-arched portal of the chapel. The thick
+ oaken door, studded with big iron nails, was open, and before them stood a
+ man who bowed profoundly to Mrs. Haldane, and then darted a swift,
+ penetrating glance at the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mr. Haldane is within, Baptisto?” she asked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, senora.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stood aside to allow them to pass, and as Mr. Santley entered he
+ regarded the man with an eye which photographed every feature of his dark
+ Spanish face. It was a face which, once seen, stamped itself in haunting
+ lineaments on the memory. A dusky olive complexion; a fierce, handsome
+ mouth and chin; a broad, intelligent forehead; short, crisp black hair
+ sprinkled with grey; a thin, black moustache, twisted and pointed at the
+ ends; and a pair of big, black, unfathomable eyes, filled with liquid
+ fire. It was the man’s eyes that arrested the attention first, gave
+ character not only to the face but to the man himself, and indeed served
+ to identify him. In the village, “the foreign gentleman with the eyes” was
+ the popular and sufficient description of Baptisto.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER VI. THE UNKNOWN GOD.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>s the vicar
+ entered the chapel, he stopped short, struck with astonishment at the
+ singular appearance of the interior.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sunlight streaming through the leaded diamond panes of the casements,
+ instead of falling on the familiar pews, flagged nave, and solemn walls,
+ shone with a startling effect on the heterogeneous contents of a museum
+ and laboratory. Along one side of the building were ranged several glass
+ cases containing collections of fossils, arctic and tropical shells,
+ antique implements of flint, stone, and bronze, and geological specimens.
+ The walls were decorated with savage curiosities—shields of skin,
+ carved clubs and paddles, spears and arrows tipped with flint or fishbone,
+ mats of grass, strings of wampum, and dresses of skins and feathers. On a
+ couple of small shelves grinned two rows of hideous crania, gathered as
+ ethnic types from all quarters of the barbarian world, and beside them lay
+ a plaster cast of a famous paleolithic skull. On the various stands and
+ tables in different parts of the room were retorts and crucibles, curious
+ tubes, glasses and flasks, electric jars and batteries, balances,
+ microscopes, prisms, strange instruments of brass and glass, and a
+ bewildering litter of odds and ends, for which only a student of science
+ could find a name or a use. At the further end of the room, under the
+ coloured east window, stood an escritoire covered with a confused mass of
+ paper, and beside it stood a small table piled with books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Mrs. Haldane and the vicar entered, the master of Foxglove Manor, who
+ had been writing, rose, laid down his pipe, buttoned his old velvet
+ shooting-jacket, and hastened forward to welcome his visitor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Baptisto gravely set a couple of chairs, and, at a sign from his master,
+ bowed profoundly, and retired to the further end of the apartment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you smoke, Mr. Santley?” Mr. Haldane asked, glancing at a box of new
+ clay pipes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No, thank you; but I do not dislike the smell of tobacco. I find,
+ however, that smoking disagrees with me—irritates instead of
+ soothing, as professors of the weed tell me it should do.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Touches the solar plexus, eh? Then beware of it! The value of the solar
+ system is often determined by the condition of the solar plexus.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “That does seem to be frequently the case,” replied Mr. Santley, smiling.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Invariably, my dear sir, as the ancients were well aware when they
+ formulated that comprehensive, but little comprehended, proverb of the
+ sound mind in the sound body. It is curious how frequently modern science
+ finds herself demonstrating the truth of the guesses of the old
+ philosophers!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I perceive you are devoted to science,” said Mr. Santley, waving his hand
+ towards the evidences of his host’s taste.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh yes, he is perpetually experimenting in some direction or other,” said
+ Mrs. Haldane, with a laugh. “I believe he and Baptisto would pass the
+ night here, boiling germs or mounting all manner of invisible little
+ monsters for the microscope, if I allowed them. You must know, Mr.
+ Santley, that Mr. Haldane is writing a <i>magnum opus</i>—‘The
+ History of Morals,’ I believe, is to be the title—and what with his
+ experiments and his chapters, he can scarcely find time to dine.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You have been happy in your subject,” said the vicar, turning to the
+ master of the Manor. “The history of morals must be an enthralling book. I
+ can scarcely imagine any subject affording larger scope for literary
+ genius than this of the development of that divine law written on the
+ heart of Adam. Why do you smile, may I ask?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Pardon me; I was not conscious that I did smile, except mentally. You
+ will excuse me, however, if I frankly say that I was smiling at your
+ conception of the genesis of morality. What you term the divine law
+ written on the heart of Adam represents to me a very advanced stage in the
+ development of the moral sense. We must begin far beyond Adam, my dear
+ sir, if we would arrive at a philosophic appreciation of the subject. We
+ must explore as far as possible into that misty and enigmatic period which
+ precedes historical record; approach as nearly as may be to the time when
+ in the savage, possibly semi-simian, brain of the earliest of our
+ predecessors experience had begun to reiterate her proofs that what was
+ good was to his personal advantage, and that what was bad entailed loss
+ and suffering. It has hitherto been the habit to believe that the
+ Decalogue was revealed from Sinai in thunder and lightning and clouds of
+ darkness. As a dramatic image or allegory only should that be accepted.
+ Clouds of darkness do indeed surround the genesis of the moral in man, and
+ the law has been revealed by the deadly lightnings of disease and war and
+ famine and misery, through unknown and innumerable generations. No divine
+ law was written on the heart of the first man, or society would not be
+ where it is to-day. No; unhappily, one might say, morality has been like
+ everything else human—like everything else, human or not,—like
+ the coloured flower to the plant, the gay plumage to the bird, a dearly
+ bought conquest, a painfully laboured evolution.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Once or twice during Mr. Haldane’s remarks, the vicar had raised his hand
+ in disclaimer, but waited till he had finished before speaking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I was about to protest,” he now said, “against several of your
+ expressions, but I fear controversy is of little good when the disputants
+ argue from different premises. I perceive that you have accepted a theory
+ of life which completely shuts out God from His creation.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Pardon me; like the old Greek, I can still raise an altar to the unknown
+ God.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “To a cold, remote, indifferent abstraction, then,” replied Mr. Santley,
+ impulsively; “to a God unknowing as unknown—a vague, unrealizable,
+ impersonal Power.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Impersonal, I grant you, and therefore more logical, even according to
+ human reason, than the huge, passionate anthropomorphism of Jew and
+ Christian. Consciousness and personality imply the notion of limits and
+ conditions; and which is the grander idea—a limited, conditioned
+ Power, however great, or, an absolute transcendent Godhead, free from all
+ the limits which govern our finite being? God cannot be conscious as we
+ understand consciousness, nor personal as we understand personality-If He
+ were, then indeed we might well believe that we were made after His image
+ and likeness.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And can you find comfort in such a creed? Can you turn for strength, or
+ grace, or consolation to such a power as you describe?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why should I?” asked Mr. Haldane, smiling. “If I need any of these
+ things, my need is the result of some law violated or unobserved. The
+ world is ruled by law, and every breach of law entails an inescapable
+ penalty. If I suffer I must endure.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “That is cold comfort for all the sum of misery in the world.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It is the only true comfort. The rest is delusion. Preach that every
+ violated law avenges itself, not in some half mythical hell at the close
+ of a life that seems illimitable—for men never do realize that they
+ will one day die—but avenges itself here and now; preach that no
+ crucified Redeemer can interfere between the violator of the law and its
+ penalty; preach that if men sin they will infallibly suffer, and you will
+ really do something to regenerate mankind. Christianity, with its
+ doctrines of atonement and vicarious suffering and redemption, has done as
+ much to fill the world with vice, crime, and disease as the most degraded,
+ creed of pagan or savage. The groaning and travail of creation are clamant
+ proofs that vicarious suffering and redemption are the veriest dreams.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Either purposely or inadvertently you mix up the physical and the moral
+ law,” interposed the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The physical and the moral are but one law, articles of the one universal
+ code of nature.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “True,” said the vicar. “I forgot that you denied man his immortal soul,
+ as you deny him his divine sonship. And so you are content to believe that
+ man is born to live, labour, suffer, and perish.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Concede that God is content that such should be man’s destiny,” replied
+ Mr. Haldane, “what then?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What then?” echoed the vicar, rising from his chair with flashing eyes
+ and agitated face; “why, then life is a fiendish mockery!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane’s face wore a grim smile as he heard the bitter emphasis of
+ the vicar’s reply.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ah, my worthy friend,” he said, “you illustrate how necessary it is that
+ when one has his hand full of truth he should only open it one finger at a
+ time. If you revolt thus angrily against the new gospel, what can be
+ expected from the ignorant and the vicious? The meaning and purpose of
+ life does not depend on whether the individual man shall perish or shall
+ be immortal. If perish he must, he may at least perish heroically.
+ Annihilation or immortality does not affect the validity of religion,
+ whose paramount aim is not to prepare for another world, but to make the
+ best of this—to realize its ideal greatness and nobility. If life
+ should suddenly appear a mockery, contrast the present with that remote
+ past of the naked savage of the stone age, or the brutal condition of his
+ more remote sylvan ancestor, learning to walk erect and to articulate; and
+ then summon up a vision of the possible future, when superstition shall
+ have ceased to embitter man’s life, when a knowledge of natural law shall
+ have made men virtuous, when disease shall have vanished from the world,
+ and the nations shall, in a golden age of peace and perfected arts, have
+ learnt the method of a patriarchal longevity. Millions of individuals have
+ wept and toiled and perished to secure for us the present; we and millions
+ shall weep and toil and perish to secure the future for them.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And that you take to be the significance of life, the progress of the
+ race?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And is not that at least as noble a significance as a heaven peopled with
+ the penitent thief, the drunkard, the gallow’s-bird, the harlot, the
+ thousand bestial types of humanity redeemed by vicarious agony—the
+ thousand brutes of civilization who, in this age, are not fit for life
+ even on this earth, to say nothing of an enlarged immortality?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But with ever-rising grades of immortality before them, even those
+ bestial types might ascend to a perfect manhood, and shall they perish?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have they not been ascending ever since the Miocene?” asked Mr. Haldane,
+ with a scornful laugh. “However, it is little use discussing the matter.
+ As you have said, we cannot agree upon first principles. Let me show you,
+ instead, some of my curiosities. Did you ever see the Mentone skull? Here
+ is a plaster cast of it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And do you accept this dark and comfortless creed of your husband?” asked
+ Mr. Santley, turning to Mrs. Haldane as he took the cast in his hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh no,” she replied, raising her soft dark eyes to him earnestly; “the
+ progress of humanity does not satisfy me as an explanation of the enigma
+ of life in man or woman. I cannot abandon my old faith and trust in the
+ God-Man for an unknown power who does not care for my suffering and cannot
+ hear my prayers. What to me can such a god be? And what can life be but a
+ mockery if my soul, with its yearnings and aspirations and ideals, ceases
+ to exist after death—has no other world but this, in which I know
+ its infinite wants can never be satisfied?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar’s face brightened, and his heart beat with a strange, impulsive
+ ardour as he listened to her. Why had this woman, whose enthusiasm and
+ sympathy might have enabled him to realize his own high ideal of the
+ spiritual, been denied him? What evil destiny had bound her for ever to a
+ man whose paralyzing creed must make a perpetual division between them—a
+ man who could look into her sweet face and yet think of her as merely a
+ beautiful animal; who could fold her in his arms, and yet tranquilly
+ accept the teaching that at death that pure, radiant soul of hers would be
+ for ever extinguished? These thoughts and feelings went through the vicars
+ consciousness swiftly as sunshine and shadow over a landscape.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His eyes dropped on the plaster cast in his hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “This is very old?” he asked musingly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “One of the oldest skulls in the world,” replied Mr. Haldane. “It was
+ discovered by Dr. Rivière in a cave at Mentone, in a cliff overlooking the
+ sea. The man belonged to the ancient stone age, and was contemporary with
+ the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros of the Post-pliocene. The cave was a
+ place of burial, and on the head of the skeleton was a thickly plaited
+ network of sea-shells, with a fringe of deers’ teeth around the edge; the
+ limbs were adorned with bracelets and anklets of shells also; and in front
+ of the face was placed a little oxide of iron, used as war-paint, no
+ doubt.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Even in the Post-pliocene, then,” said the vicar, “it would appear that
+ man believed in a hereafter.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ah, yes; it is an antique superstition, and even yet we have not outgrown
+ it-Human progress is slow.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And this face was raised to the blue sky ages ago, looking for God!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane shrugged his shoulders, and smiled grimly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “How is it possible that you, who-must share the weaknesses and sorrows of
+ the human heart, can so stoically accept the horrible prospect of
+ annihilation?” asked the vicar, half angrily.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I accept truths. Do you imagine I prefer annihilation? I could wish that
+ life were ordered otherwise, but wishing’ cannot change an eternal system.
+ Immortality cannot be achieved by defying’ annihilation.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have you realized death?” exclaimed the vicar, passionately. “Can you,
+ dare you, look forward to a time when, say, your wife shall lie cold and
+ lifeless,—and hold to the doctrine that you have lost her for ever,
+ that never again shall your spirit mingle with hers, that you and she are
+ for all eternity divorced?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You appeal to the passions, and not to the reason,” replied Mr. Haldane,
+ coldly. “What holds good for the beast which perishes, holds good for all
+ of us, and will hold good for those who come after us, and who will be
+ greater and nobler than we.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Be it so,” replied the vicar, in an undertone. As he spoke he bit his
+ lip, and his cheek coloured. The thought was not meant for utterance, but
+ it slipped into words before he was aware. For the full significance of
+ that thought was a singular exemplification of the conflicting spiritual
+ and animal natures of the man. That divorce of death which had been
+ pronounced inevitable opened before him, in a dreamy vista of the future,
+ a new world of ecstatic beatitude, where his soul and the radiant spirit
+ of the woman who stood beside him should be mingled together in
+ indissoluble communion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER VII. CELESTIAL AFFINITIES.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>hortly afterwards
+ Mrs. Haldane suggested that they should take a turn about the grounds,
+ instead of wasting the sunshine indoors. As they left the chapel the vicar
+ paused and looked back at the ivy-draped building, with its half-hidden
+ lancets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You have turned a sacred edifice to a strange use,” he said. “Here,
+ within the walls where past generations have dwelt and worshipped, you
+ have set up your apparatus for the destruction of man’s holiest heritage.
+ Pardon me if I speak warmly, but to me this appears to be sacrilege.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The Church has always been intolerant of science and research,” replied
+ Mr. Haldane, good-humouredly, “and it is the fortune of conflict if
+ sometimes we are able to make reprisals. But, seriously, I see no
+ desecration here.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No desecration in converting Gods house into a laboratory to analyze soul
+ and spirit into function and force!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No desecration,” should say, “in converting the shrine of a narrow,
+ selfish superstition into a schoolroom where one may learn a truer and a
+ grander theology, and a less presumptuous and illusive theory of life. It
+ is, however, impossible for us to be at one on these matters; let us at
+ least agree to differ amicably. Your predecessor and I found much of
+ common interest. He was of the old school, but life had taught him a
+ kindly tolerance of opinion. To you, as I gleaned from your sermon
+ yesterday, the new philosophy and modern criticism are familiar. You must
+ surely concede that the old theological ground must be immeasurably
+ widened, if you are still resolved to occupy it. Why should you fear
+ truth, if God has indeed revealed Himself to the Church?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The Church does not fear truth,” replied the vicar; “but she does fear
+ the wild speculations and guesses at truth which unsettle the faith of the
+ world. For myself I have looked into some of these fantastic theories of
+ science, and I repudiate them as at once blasphemous and hopeless. It is
+ easy to destroy the old trust in the beneficence of Providence, in the
+ redemption and destiny of man; but when you have accomplished that, you
+ can go no further. Tyndall proves to you that all life in the world is the
+ outcome of antecedent life; Haeckel contends that science must in the long
+ run accept spontaneous generation. Your leading men are at loggerheads;
+ and it signifies little which is right, for in either case the <i>causa
+ causans</i> is only removed one link further back in the chain of
+ causation. Some of you hold that there is only matter and force in the
+ universe, but on others it is beginning to dawn that possibly matter and
+ force are in the ultimate one and the same. And again, it signifies little
+ which is right, for both, being conditioned, must have had a beginning. A
+ God, a creative Power, is needed in the long run—‘a power behind
+ humanity, and behind all other things,’ as Herbert Spencer describes it; a
+ God of whom science can predicate nothing, of whom science declares it to
+ be beyond her province to speak, but of whom every heart is at some time
+ vividly conscious and has been from the beginning—demonstrably from
+ the Paleolithic period until now.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, Mr. Santley, I am so pleased you have said that. I have often wished
+ that I were able to answer my husband, but I have no power of argument,”
+ said Mrs. Haldane, looking gratefully at the vicar. “You must not think he
+ is not a good, a real practical Christian, in spite of his opinions.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane laughed quietly as his wife slipped her hand into his.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “As to the God of the Paleolithic man, Mr. Santley forgets that it was at
+ best a personification of some of the great natural powers—wind;
+ rain, thunder, sunshine, and moonlight; and as to Christianity, my dear,
+ there is much in the teaching of Christ, and even of the Church, which I
+ reverence and hold sacred. Morality, and the consequent civilization of
+ the world, owes more to Christianity than to any other creed. It has done
+ much evil, but I think it has done more good. Purified from its mythic
+ delusions, it has still a splendid future before it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And <i>à propos</i> of practical Christianity, Mr. Santley,” continued
+ Mrs. Haldane, “I want to talk to you about the parish. I am eager to begin
+ with my poor people again; and, by-the-bye, the children have, I
+ understand, had no school treat yet this year. Now, sit down here and tell
+ me all about your sick, in the first place.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haldane stood listening to the woes and illnesses of the village for a
+ few minutes, and then left them together in deep discussions over flannels
+ and medicines and nourishing food. Dinner passed pleasantly enough. The
+ vicar had satisfied his conscience by protesting against the desecration
+ of the chapel and the disastrous results of scientific research. Clearly
+ it was useless, and worse than useless, to contend with this
+ large-natured, clear-headed unbeliever. It was infinitely more agreeable
+ to feel the soft dark light of Mrs. Haldane’s eyes dwelling on his face,
+ and to listen to the music of her voice as she told him of their travels
+ abroad. In his imagination the scenes she described rose before him, and
+ he and she were the central figures in the clear, new landscape. He
+ thought of their walks on the cliffs and on the sea-shore, in the golden
+ days that had gone by. How easily it might have been!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sun had gone down when he parted from his host and hostess at the
+ great gate at the end of the avenue. He had declined their offer to drive
+ him over to Omberley. He preferred walking in the cool of the evening, and
+ the distance was, he professed, not at all too great. As he shook hands
+ with her, that wild, etherial fancy of a world to come, in which her
+ husband would have no claim to her, brightened his eyes and flushed his
+ cheek. There was a strange nervous pressure in the touch of his hand, and
+ an expression of surprise started into her face. He noticed it at once,
+ and was warned. Mr. Haldane’s farewell was bluffly cordial, and he warmly
+ pressed the vicar to call on them at any time that best suited his
+ convenience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They were pretty sure to be always at home, and they were not likely to
+ have too much company.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As he walked along the high-road, bordered on one side with the green
+ murmuring masses of foliage, and on the other with waving breadths of
+ corn, his mind was absorbed in that new dream of transcendent love. There
+ was nothing earthly or gross in this dawning glow of spiritual passion;
+ indeed, it raised him in delicious exaltation beyond the coarseness of the
+ physical, till, as it suddenly occurred to him that somewhere on his way
+ Edith was waiting for him, his heart rose in revulsion at the recollection
+ of her. At the same time there was a large element of the sensuous beauty
+ of transient humanity in that celestial forecast. The pure, radiant spirit
+ of the woman he loved still wore the sweet lineaments of her earthly
+ loveliness. Death had not destroyed that magical face; those dark,
+ luminous, loving eyes; that sweet shape of womanhood. The spiritual body
+ was cast in the mould of the physical, and the chief difference lay in a
+ shining mistiness of colour, which floated in a sort of elusive drapery
+ about the glorified woman, and replaced the worldly silks and satins of
+ the living wife. This spiritual being was no intangible abstraction, of
+ which only the intellect could take cognizance. As in its temporal
+ condition, it could still kiss and thrill with a touch. Clearly, however
+ unconscious he might be of the fact, the vicar’s conception of the divine
+ was intensely human, and his spiritual idealizations were the immediate
+ growth and delicate blossom of the senses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great stillness was growing over the land as he pursued his way. The
+ woodlands had been left behind him, and their incessant murmur was now
+ inaudible. Sleep and quietude had fallen on the level fields; not an ear
+ of wheat stirred, no leaf rustled. The birds had all gone to nest, except
+ a solitary string of belated crows, flying low down in black dots, against
+ the distant silvery green horizon. The moon was rising through a low-lying
+ haze, which had begun to spread over the landscape. The vicar looked at
+ his watch. It was after nine o’clock. He began to hope that Edith had
+ grown tired of waiting for him, and had returned home. He had a sickening
+ feeling of repugnance and vague dread of meeting her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Little more than a month after Mr. Santley had settled in Omberley, Miss
+ Dove had come to live with her aunt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Her father and mother had died within a year of each other, and the girl
+ gladly accepted the offer of Mrs. Russell to consider her house as a home
+ until she had had time to look about her. Edith had been left sufficiently
+ well provided for, and her aunt, the widow of a banker, was in a position
+ of independence, so that the disinterested offer was accepted without any
+ sense of dependence or humiliation. The bright, innocent face of the girl
+ instantly caught the eye of the vicar. He saw her frequently at her aunt’s
+ house, and gradually learned to esteem, not only her excellent qualities,
+ but to find a use for her accomplishments. She was especially fond of
+ music, and when the vicar suggested that she might add to the beauty of
+ the service at St. Cuthbert’s by interesting herself in the choir and
+ presiding at the organ, she eagerly acquiesced. The church was one of
+ Edith’s favourite haunts; and when the vicar, who was himself a lover of
+ music, heard the soul-stirring vibrations of some masterpiece of the great
+ composers, his steps were drawn by an easily explicable fatality to the
+ side of the pretty performer. Still, it was a fatality. Slowly, and
+ imperceptibly at first, the sense of pleasure at meeting grew up between
+ the two; then swiftly and imperceptibly they found that there was
+ something in the presence of each other that satisfied a vague,
+ indefinable craving; and lastly, with a sudden access of
+ self-consciousness, they looked into each other’s eyes, and each became
+ gladly and tremulously aware of the other’s love. Edith was still young,
+ almost too young yet to assume the station of the wife of the spiritual
+ head of the parish; and Mr. Santley was not sure as to the manner in which
+ his sister would receive the intimation that there was, even in the remote
+ future, to be a new mistress brought to the Vicarage. The girl was,
+ however, still too happy in the knowledge that she was beloved to look
+ forward to marriage. With a strange, feminine inconsistency, she regarded
+ their union with a certain dread and shamefacedness. It seemed such a
+ dreadful exposure that all the village should know that they loved each
+ other. “Oh no, no; it must not be for a long, long time yet!” she once
+ exclaimed nervously. “Is it not sufficient happiness to know that I am
+ yours and you are mine? I cannot bear to think that every one must know
+ our secret.” To have those long, pleasant chats under cover of the music;
+ to be invited to the Vicarage, and to sit and talk with him there; to
+ receive those haphazard glances, as it were, while he was preaching; to be
+ escorted home by him in the evening when it was dark, and no one could see
+ that her hand was on his arm; to receive those almost stolen kisses; to
+ feel his arm about her waist what more could maiden desire to dream over
+ for weeks and months—for years, if need were?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith was endowed with the intense feminine faith and fervid ideality of
+ the worshipper. To sit at her lover’s feet and to look up adoringly to
+ him, was at once her favourite mental and physical attitude. On her side,
+ she exercised a curious spiritual influence over him. There was such an
+ aerial brightness and lightness about her, such sweet fragile loveliness
+ in her form and figure, such tender abandonment of self in her
+ disposition, that he felt he had not only a woman to love, but a beautiful
+ childlike soul to keep unspotted from the world, to guide through the dark
+ ways of life to the arms of the great loving Fatherhood of God. The
+ presence of Edith helped him to banish the dark doubts and evil promptings
+ of the spirit of unbelief. When she spoke to him of her spiritual
+ experiences, he felt joyous ascensions of the heart which raised him
+ nearer to heaven. She created in him the unspeakable holy longings and
+ vague wants that give the lives of the mystic saints of Roman Catholicism
+ so singular a blending of divine illumination and voluptuous colour.
+ Unconsciously the vicar was realizing in his own nature Swedenborg’s
+ doctrine of celestial affinities. This love restored to him the innocence
+ and ardour of the days of Eden; he had found at once his Eve and his
+ Paradise, and he felt that, as of old, God still walked in the garden in
+ the cool of the day. Some such glamour surrounds the first developments of
+ every sincere attachment. It is the first rosy tingling flush of dawn, dim
+ and sweet and dreamy, and, like the dawn, it glows and brightens into the
+ fierce clear heat of broad day, burning the dew from the petal and
+ withering the blossom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Mr. Santley’s thoughts turned to Edith, the recollection of these
+ things came vividly upon him. Only a week ago, and she was the one woman
+ in the world he believed he could have chosen for his wife. In an instant,
+ at the sight of a face, all had been changed. His love had become a
+ burthen, a shame, a dread to him. Edith had grown hateful to him. At the
+ same time, he could not deaden the sting of remorse as he reflected on his
+ broken vows. The passionate protestations he had uttered sounded again in
+ his ears in accents of bitter mockery; the pledges he had given seemed now
+ to him hideous blasphemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At a bend of the road he suddenly came in sight of a figure moving before
+ him in the dusk. He knew at a glance it was she, and he prepared himself
+ for the meeting. Although he earnestly wished to disembarrass himself of
+ her, he found himself unable to do so at once and brutally. He would try
+ to estrange her, and free himself little by little.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As they approached each other he saw that Edith’s face was grave and sad.
+ She was trying to learn from his look in what manner she ought to speak to
+ him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His assurances on the previous evening had not tranquillized her, and she
+ had still a terrible misgiving that a chasm was widening between them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar was the first to speak.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am a little later than I expected,” he said, as he held out his hand to
+ her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It does not signify <i>now</i>. I was only afraid that you might be so
+ late I should have to go home without seeing you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He made no reply, and they walked on side by side in silence for a few
+ seconds. At last she stopped abruptly and looked at him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Charles,” she said, “you know what you said to me last night?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Was it true?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why should you ask such a question? Why should you doubt its truth?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I try not to doubt it, but I cannot help it. Oh, tell me again that you
+ do not hate and contemn me! Tell me you still love me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My dear Edith,” replied the vicar, laying his hand on her arm, “you are
+ not well. You have been overtaxing your strength and exciting yourself.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith did not answer, but the tears rose to her eyes and began to run down
+ her cheeks. She did not sob or make any sound of weeping, but her hand was
+ pressed against her throat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Come, don’t cry like that; you know I cannot bear to see you cry.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stopped as he spoke, and took her hand in his. They stood still a
+ little while, and she at length was able to speak.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do you remember,” she asked in a low, broken voice, “that I once told you
+ you were my conscience?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He regarded her uneasily before he replied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes; you once said that, I know. But why return to that now?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And have you not been?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was silent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Your word,” she continued, “has been my law; what you have said I have
+ believed. Have I done wrong?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why are you letting these things trouble you now?” he asked impatiently.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Because I know that when a woman gives herself wholly to the man she
+ loves, it is common for her to lose him, and I have begun to feel that I
+ am losing you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I do not think I have given you any reason to feel that.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She did not speak again immediately, but stood with her innocent blue eyes
+ raised beseechingly to his face. Suddenly she took hold of his hands, and
+ said—
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You told me that in the eyes of God we were man and wife, that no
+ marriage ceremony could ever join us together more truly, that marriage
+ really consisted in the union of heart and soul, not in the words of any
+ priest—did you not? Was that true? Am I still your little wife?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He hesitated. The blood had vanished from his cheek, leaving it haggard
+ and pale; she felt his hands trembling in hers. Then, with a sudden
+ impulse, he took her face between his hands and drew her towards him, as
+ he answered—
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are, darling. I will not do you any wrong.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER VIII. A SICK-CALL.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Santley’s reply
+ was as sincere at the moment it was spoken as it was impulsive. The saner
+ and better part of him rose in sudden sympathy towards this young,
+ confiding girl who had laid her whole being in his hands, to be his
+ treasure or his plaything. He resolved to be faithful to the solemn pledge
+ he had given her, and to cast from him for ever all thought of Mrs.
+ Haldane, and all memory of that passionate episode of the past. He drew
+ Edith’s hand under his arm and held it there. That warm little bit of
+ responsive flesh and blood had still, he felt, a power to thrill through
+ his nature. He bent down and kissed it. For some time their conversation
+ was embarrassed, but gradually all sense of doubt and estrangement
+ vanished, and he was telling her about his visit to the Manor. A pressure
+ was laid upon him to make her such amends as he was able for his coldness
+ during the past week, and he determined to break the spell which Mrs.
+ Haldane’s beauty threw over him by revealing their old friendship to
+ Edith. It was not wise, but under the stress of remorse and a reviving
+ passion men seldom act wisely. Except in the case of a jealous
+ disposition, a woman is always pleased to hear of her lover’s old vaguely
+ cherished love affairs, when there is no possibility of their ever coming
+ to life again. She knows instinctively, even when she is not told so
+ adoringly, that she supersedes all her predecessors and combines all their
+ virtues and charms. He loved this one for her beauty and sweetness, that
+ one for her clear bright intelligence; each in a different way; but her he
+ loves in both the old ways, and in a new way also which she alone could
+ inspire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mrs. Haldane was an old pupil of mine—indeed, a favourite pupil—many
+ years ago; so, naturally, I am much interested in her,” said the vicar in
+ a tentative manner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The words were a revelation to Edith; they explained to her all her
+ uneasiness and all his change of manner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you find that you still love her a little?” Edith ventured to say in
+ a sad, faltering tone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I never said I loved her, my dear,” replied the vicar, with a forced
+ laugh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But you did, did you not? She was your favourite pupil.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How uncomfortably keen-sighted this young person seemed to be, in spite of
+ her soft, endearing ways!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Would you be a little jealous if I said I did?” he asked, regarding her
+ with a scrutinizing look.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Jealous! Oh no. Why should I? Is she not married? And am I not really and
+ truly your little wife?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He pressed her hand gently for answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And when you saw her again last Sunday, and saw how beautiful she was,”
+ Edith continued, “you felt sorry that you had lost her—just a little
+ regretful, did you not?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar hesitated, and then did the most foolish thing a man can do in
+ such circumstances—confessed the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You will not be vexed, darling, if I say that I did feel regret?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You loved her very much?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “She was my first love.” replied the vicar. “But you must remember it was
+ years ago. Long before I knew you; when I was quite a young man.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And was she very fond of you?” Edith went on quietly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I used to think she was.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But she was not true to you?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I do not blame her. I do not think it was her fault. Her people were
+ wealthy, and I was poor, a poor teacher.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And it was this made you so cold and hard to me all last week?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Santley did not answer at once.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would be brutal to say yes, and he dared not hazard a denial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, Charles, she never loved you as I have.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Never, never,” replied the vicar hurriedly; and a flush rose to his face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “When you meet her, when you see her again,” said Edith, grasping his arm
+ with earnest emphasis, “will you remember that? Promise me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will never forget it,” said the vicar in a low voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not see Mrs. Haldane again, however, during the week. On the
+ following Sunday his eyes wandered only for a moment towards the Manor
+ pew, and he perceived that she was alone. When he met her after the
+ service his manner was constrained, but she appeared not to notice it. She
+ spoke again of the parish work, and told him that in a day or two she
+ would drive over and accompany him on some of his calls. He looked forward
+ with uneasiness and self-distrust to her cooperation in his daily work.
+ There was an irresistible something, a magical atmosphere, an invisible
+ radiation of the enticing about this woman. Her large glowing black eyes
+ seemed to fasten upon his soul and draw it beyond his control. Her starry
+ smile intoxicated and maddened him. Beside her, Edith was but a weak,
+ delicate child, with a child’s clinging attachment, a child’s credulity
+ and trust, a child’s little gusts of passion. His lost love was a woman—such
+ a woman as men in old times would have perished for as a queen, would have
+ worshipped as a goddess—such a woman, he fancied, as that Naomi
+ whose beauty has been the mysterious tradition of five thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Early one afternoon, about the middle of the week, the vicar was just
+ about to set out on his customary round of visitation, when Mrs. Haldane’s
+ pony-carriage drove up to the gate. He assisted her to alight, and
+ returned with her to the house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miss Santley, who had been as sensitive to the change in her brother as
+ Edith herself, regarded Mrs. Haldane with little favour. She was ready to
+ acknowledge that it was very good and kind of the mistress of Foxglove
+ Manor to interest herself in the wants and suffering of the parish, but
+ she entertained grave misgivings as to the prudence of her brother and
+ this old pupil of his being thrown too frequently together. She was just a
+ little formal and reserved with her visitor, who announced her intention
+ of going with the vicar to this sick-call he had spoken of.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You will have to walk, however,” said Mr. Santley, “as the cottage is
+ some little distance across the fields.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I came prepared for walking,” she replied, with a laugh. “James can put
+ up at the village till our return.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Will you do us the favour of taking tea with us?” asked Miss Santley,
+ “You will, require it, if my brother takes you his usual round.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thank you, I shall be very glad. If James calls for me at—what time
+ shall I say?—six, will that be soon enough?” The coachman received
+ his instructions, and Mr. Santley and Mrs. Haldane set out on their first
+ combined mission. They traversed half a dozen fields, and came in sight of
+ a small cluster of cottages lying low in a green hollow. A narrow lane ran
+ past them to Omberley in one direction and to the high-road in another.
+ Half a dozen poplars grew in a line along the lane, and the cottages were
+ surrounded by small gardens, filled with fruit trees.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What a picturesque little spot!” exclaimed Mrs. Haldane. “I think nothing
+ looks so pretty as an English cottage with its white walls and tiled roof
+ peering out from a cluster of apple; and pear trees.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Pretty enough, but damp!” replied the vicar. “In wet weather they are in
+ a perfect quagmire. Ah, listen!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They were now very near the houses, and the sound to which Mr. Santley
+ called her attention was the voice of a man crying out in great pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What can it be?” asked Mrs. Haldane, with a look of alarm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It is the poor fellow we are going to see. He was knocked down and run
+ over by a cart about two years ago. His spine has been injured, and the
+ doctors can do nothing for him. He is quite helpless, and has been
+ bedridden all that time.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Poor creature! what a dreadful thing it must be to suffer like that!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Sometimes for weeks together he feels no pain. Then he is suddenly seized
+ by the most fearful torture, and you can hear his cries for a great
+ distance.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As they approached the cottage the man’s voice grew louder, and they could
+ distinguish his words: “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me what to
+ do?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane shuddered. In that green, peaceful, picturesque spot that
+ persistent reiteration of the man’s agony was horrible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Will you come in?” asked the vicar doubtfully.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His companion signed her assent, and Mr. Santley knocked gently at the
+ door. In a few seconds some one was heard coming down the staircase, and a
+ little gray-haired, gray-faced woman, dressed in black, came to the door
+ and curtsied to her visitors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mansfield is very bad again to-day?” said the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ay, this be one of his bad days, sir. He have been that bad since Sunday,
+ I haven’t known what to do with him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The voice of the sick man suddenly ceased, and he appeared to be
+ listening.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Who’s there?” he shrieked out, after a pause. “Jennie; blast you! who’s
+ there?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He be raving mad, ma’am!” said Mrs. Mansfield, apologetically. “He don’t
+ know what he is saying.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Jennie, you damned little varmint——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Hush, John, it be the parson!” his wife called up the staircase.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “To hell with the parson! Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me what to
+ do?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I’ll go up to him, sir, and tell him you’re here. He be very bad to-day,
+ poor soul! Will it please you to walk in, ma’am?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The little woman went upstairs, and her entrance to the sick-room was
+ greeted with a volley of foul curses screamed out in furious rage.
+ Gradually, however, the access of passion was exhausted, and the man was
+ again heard repeating his hopeless appeal for relief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “How do they live?” asked Mrs. Haldane, glancing about the small but
+ scrupulously clean room in which she stood. “Have they any grown-up
+ children?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No, only their two selves. She is the bread-winner. She does knitting and
+ sewing, and the neighbours, who are very kind to her, assist her with her
+ garden and do her many little kindnesses.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Poor woman! And she has endured this horrible infliction for two years!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “If you please, sir, you can come up now,” said Mrs. Mansfield from the
+ top of the stairs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar went up, and Mrs. Haldane followed him. They entered a pretty
+ large whitewashed bedroom, with raftered roof and a four-post bedstead in
+ the centre of the room. Though meagrely furnished, everything was
+ spotlessly clean and tidy. On the bed lay a great gaunt man, panting and
+ moaning, with his large filmy blue eyes turned up to the roof. He was far
+ above the common stature, and his huge wasted frame, only half hidden by
+ the bedclothes, was piteous to look at. His large venerable head, covered
+ with thin, long white hair, filled one with surprise and regretful
+ admiration. His face was thin and colourless, and a fringe of white beard
+ gave it a still more deathly appearance. One could scarcely believe that
+ the wreck before him was a common labourer. It seemed rather such a
+ spectacle as Beatrice Cenci might have looked on had her father died
+ cursing on his bed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Here’s parson come to see thee, and a lady wi’ him,” said Mrs. Mansfield,
+ raising her husband’s head.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He looked at them with his glazed blue eyes, made prominent with pain, and
+ his moaning grew louder, till they could again distinguish the constant
+ cry for release from pain: “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me what
+ to do?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Try to think of God, and pray to Him for help,” said the vicar, bending
+ over the suffering man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, I have prayed and prayed and prayed,” he replied querulously; “but it
+ does no good.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He were praying all day yesterday and singing hymns,” said Mrs.
+ Mans-held. “I don’t know what’s gotten hold of him to-day, but he have
+ been dreadful. And he were ever such a pious, God-fearing man. It fair
+ breaks my heart to hear him swearing like that. But God will not count it
+ against him, for he’s been clean beside himself.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, let me hear you pray now, Mansfield,” said the vicar. “Turn your
+ heart and your mind to God, and He will comfort you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “O God,” said the sick man, with the obedient simplicity of a child, “I
+ turn my heart and my mind to Thee; do Thou comfort me and take me to
+ Thyself. O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of mankind, do Thou
+ remember me in Thy paradise. Look down upon me, O Lord, a miserable
+ offender, and spare Thou them which confess their faults and are truly
+ penitent.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With a strange light on his white, wasted face, with his gaunt hands
+ folded on the counterpane before him, the old man sat up in bed and prayed
+ in the same loud voice of pain and semi-delirium. A wild, inconceivable,
+ interminable prayer; for long after they had left the house, old Mansfield
+ could be heard some hundreds of yards away, screaming to God for mercy and
+ consolation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We had better leave him praying,” said the vicar softly; “and when he
+ begins cursing and swearing again, Mrs. Mansfield, just kneel down and
+ pray in a loud voice beside him. It will suggest a new current to his
+ thoughts.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “God won’t count his cursing against him, sir, will he?” asked the little
+ woman. “He were ever a sober Christian man till this misery came on him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No, no,” said the vicar; “God judges the heart, not the tongue of
+ delirium.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “How old is your husband?” inquired Mrs. Haldane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “He be eighty-one come Martinmas, ma’am.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Poor old man! And you do sewing and knitting, do you not?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, ma’am, what he lets me do. He be main fractious whiles.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And have you plenty to go on with at present?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have what’ll keep me busy for a fortnight yet.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will see you again before then. I hope your husband will soon be
+ better.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “There be no hope of that, ma’am. The only betterness for him ‘ll be when
+ God takes him.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I know you will be able to find a use for this,” said Mrs. Haldane in a
+ whisper, as they went, out of the house. “Goodbye for the present.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, ma’am! God bless you!” said Mrs. Mansfield, the tears springing into
+ her eyes as she looked at the gold coin in her hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER IX. A SUMMER SHOWER.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter that first
+ round of visitation Mrs. Haldane and the vicar met very frequently.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She found that she could be of use to a great number of poor people, and
+ the occupation afforded her by her self-imposed duties was novel and
+ interesting. It is pleasant to take the place of Providence, and mete out
+ help and gladness to afflicted humanity. She was actuated by no petty
+ spirit of vanity or ostentation; and though she soon learned that the
+ poorer and more necessitous people are, the more thankless they are as a
+ rule, these disagreeable experiences did not disillusion her. Very often
+ she would leave her carriage at the village inn and accompany Mr. Santley
+ on foot across the fields and down the deep green lanes to the different
+ houses at which he was to call. Their conversations on these occasions
+ were very interesting to her; and more than once as she drove back home in
+ the evening she fell a-thinking of that distant schoolgirl past which Jiad
+ so nearly faded away from her memory, and began to wonder whether, if her
+ family had not so promptly extinguished that little romance of hers, she
+ would now have been the wife of the vicar of Omberley. No word had yet
+ passed between them of that old time, and occasionally she felt just the
+ least curiosity to know how he regarded it. She knew he had not forgotten
+ it, and she smiled to herself as she called to mind the way in which he
+ had addressed her as “Ellen” that first Sunday. She had ever since been
+ only Mrs. Haldane to him. There was a singular fascination about him which
+ she was unable to explain to herself. She remembered his words, his looks
+ his gestures with a curious distinctness. She was conscious that,
+ notwithstanding his reticence, he still entertained a warm attachment to
+ her. She could see it in his eyes, could hear it in the tones of his
+ voice, could feel it in the pressure of his hand. There is no incentive to
+ affection so powerful and subtle as the knowledge that one is beloved.
+ Without any analysis of her feelings or any misgiving whatever, Mrs.
+ Haldane knew that the vicar’s friendship was very dear to her, that his
+ sympathy and counsel were rapidly growing indispensable. Many things
+ troubled her in connection with her husband—his indifference to any
+ form of religion, his stern acceptance of the conclusions of science,
+ however destructive they might be of all that the world had clung to as
+ essential to goodness and happiness, his utter disbelief of the truths of
+ revelation, his rejection of the only God in whom she could place trust
+ and confidence. Diffidently at first, and with pain and doubt, she spoke
+ to Mr. Santley of these troubles, and of the waverings of her own
+ convictions. Her husband was so good, so upright and noble a man, that she
+ could not despair of his some day returning to the faith and the Church of
+ his boyhood. Could the vicar not aid her in winning him back to God? Then,
+ too, at times her husband’s words appealed to her reason so irresistibly
+ that she began to question whether after all she had not spent her life in
+ the worship of a delusion. That did not happen often, but it terrified her
+ that it should be possible for her at any time or in any circumstance to
+ call in question the fatherhood of God or the divinity of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was only natural that these matters-should draw the vicar and his fair
+ parishioner very close to each other; and that intimate relationship of
+ soul with soul by subtle degrees widened and widened till each became
+ deeply interested in everything that could in any way affect the other. In
+ spite of his strongest resolve to be true to Edith, Mr. Santley felt
+ himself irresistibly drawn to her beautiful rival. He struggled with the
+ enchantment till further resistance seemed useless, and then he sought
+ refuge in self-deception. His nature, he fancied, was wide enough to
+ include the love of both. To Edith he could give the affection of a
+ husband, to Ellen the anticipative passion of a disfranchised spirit. One
+ was a temporal, the other an eternal sentiment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One afternoon, as they were returning from a visit, being on the edge of
+ the moss about a couple of miles from the village, they were overtaken by
+ a storm. There was a clump of trees hard by, and they entered it for
+ shelter. Mrs. Haldane had her waterproof with her; but the rain drove in
+ such drenching showers, that the vicar insisted on her standing under his
+ umbrella and sheltering her person with her own. Side by side, with the
+ large trunk of a beech-tree behind them and its tossing branches overhead,
+ they stood there for nearly half an hour. He held his umbrella over her so
+ that his arm almost touched her further shoulder. They were very close
+ together, and while she watched the flying volleys of rain he was gazing
+ on the beautiful complexion of her face and neck, on the rich dark masses
+ of her hair, her sweet arched eyebrows and long curving eyelashes. For
+ years he had not been able to regard her so closely. She did not notice
+ his scrutiny at first, but, when she did, little sunny flushes of colour
+ made her loveliness still more electrical. They were talking of the storm
+ at first, but now there was an interval of silence. She felt his eyes upon
+ her face—they seemed to touch her, and the contract made her cheeks
+ glow. At last she turned and looked straight at him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I was thinking of long ago,” he said in answer to her look; “do you
+ remember how once we were caught by a thunderstorm at Seacombe, and we
+ stood together under a tree just as we are now?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What an excellent memory you have!” she said with a smile, while her
+ colour again rose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I never forget anything,” rejoined Mr. Santley with emphasis. “But surely
+ you too recollect that?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh yes; I have not forgotten it,” she said lightly. “We were very foolish
+ people in those days.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We were very happy people, were we not?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, I think we were; it was a childish happiness.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Manhood, then, has brought me no greater. Ah, Ellen, you seem to have
+ easily let the past slip away from you. With me it is as vivid to-day as
+ if it were only yesterday that you and I walked on the cliffs together. Do
+ you remember we went to the gipsy’s camp in the sand-hills, and had our
+ fortunes told?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane blushed and laughed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We were foolish enough to do anything, I think, at that time.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “That pretty gipsy girl with the dark almond eyes and red-and-amber
+ headdress was sadly out in her reading of our destinies.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane made no reply. These reminiscences, and especially the tone
+ in which the vicar dwelt on them, disquieted her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I think the worst of the shower is over now,” she said, stepping from
+ under his umbrella. As she spoke, however, a fresh gust of wind and rain
+ contradicted her, and she stepped further into the shelter of the tree.
+ Mr. Santley clearly understood the significance of her words and action.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It is raining far too heavily to go yet,” he said gently. “Let me hold my
+ umbrella over you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She consented a little uneasily, but he laid his hand upon her arm and
+ said—
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have displeased you by referring to the past, have I not? Come, be
+ frank with me. Surely we are good enough friends by this to speak candidly
+ to each other.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She raised her great dark eyes to his face and replied gravely,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I do not like you to speak of the past in that way. I do not think it is
+ right. I hope we <i>are</i> good enough friends to speak candidly. I have
+ trusted you as a friend, as a very dear and true friend. I wish to keep
+ you always my friend; but when you spoke just now of our childish liking
+ for each other, I do not think you spoke as a—friend.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar was silent, and his eyes were cast on the ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have I done you an injustice?” she asked in a low tone, after a little
+ pause. “Then, pray, do forgive me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar regarded her with a look of sadness, and took the little gloved
+ hand she held out to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You do me injustice in thinking that I have forgotten your position.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane coloured deeply.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No,” continued the vicar, “I have not forgotten that. I <i>cannot</i>
+ forget it. And if I still love you with the old love of those vanished
+ years, if I love you with a love which will colour my whole life, do not
+ imagine that it is with any hope of a response in this world. I do your
+ husband no injustice; I do you no dishonour. I loved you long before he
+ knew you; I shall love you still in that after life in which he has
+ deliberately abandoned all claim to you in the very existence of which he
+ places no belief. Between this and then let me be your friend—your
+ brother; let me be as one in whom you will ever find sympathy and
+ devotedness; one who can share and understand all your doubts and
+ distress, all your temptations and trials. I do not ask you to love me; I
+ only ask you to let me love you.” This gust of passion was so sudden, so
+ unexpected, so overwhelming, that almost before she was aware, he had
+ spoken and she had listened. And now as she thought of what he said a
+ strangely mixed sensation of doubt and pleasure awoke within her. All that
+ he wished to be he was indeed already in her eyes—her adviser,
+ sympathiser, friend. Only this secret unexpectant love which lived on the
+ past and the future agitated her. And yet surely it was a pure spiritual
+ love which asked for no return on this side of the grave. These thoughts
+ occurred to her before she took the sober common-sense view of what he had
+ said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are taking too visionary, too feverish a view of life when you speak
+ in that way,” she said gently. “We cannot live on dreams. Our duties, our
+ work, our disappointments and cares are too real for us to be satisfied
+ with any love less real. You will some day meet some one worthy of your
+ affection, capable of sympathising with you and aiding you in your
+ life-work—some one who will be a fitting helpmeet to you. For my
+ part, I think that whenever we have missed what we are apt to consider a
+ great happiness it is a sure sign that God intends some better thing for
+ us.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar shook his head silently.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, you must have more faith!” she continued brightly. “And it ought to
+ be very easy for you to have faith in this matter. You have all the
+ advantages on your side. And, if I may be frank with you, I will say that
+ I think you would be happier if you <i>were</i> married. You need some
+ responsive heart, and nowhere could one more need close companionship than
+ in such a place as Omberley.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The rain had ceased, and as she spoke the last words she glanced up at the
+ clouds breaking away from the sunny blue of the sky.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I think we may safely start now. How bright and sweet everything looks
+ after the rain; and what a fragrance the fields have!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Santley did not attempt to renew the conversation. Clearly she was not
+ in the mood, and he believed that what he had said had fallen as seed in a
+ generous soil, and would germinate in the warmth of her fervid
+ temperament. It was enough that she knew he still loved her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such a knowledge is ever dangerous to an imaginative woman. For several
+ days after that incident Mrs. Haldane never thought of the vicar, never
+ heard his name mentioned without at the same time unconsciously recalling—or
+ rather without having flashed upon her a mental picture not only of that
+ little wood near the moss, but of the romantic shore at Seacombe. She felt
+ a strange tender interest in the man who had loved her so long, and still
+ loved her so hopelessly, so unselfishly. Hitherto in their relationship
+ she had only thought of herself, of her own needs and her own happiness.
+ She had looked up to him. But that avowal had changed their position
+ towards one another in a singular way. He to whom every one felt entitled
+ to appeal to for advice, assistance, consolation, was evidently himself in
+ need of human affection. She had hitherto regarded the priest rather than
+ the man, but now the man chiefly engaged her attention, and attracted her
+ sympathy while he excited and perplexed her imagination. What could she do
+ to be of service to him? She set her woman’s wit to work in a woman’s way,
+ and speedily arrived at one means of serving him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “George,” she said to her husband one morning at breakfast, “I have been
+ thinking of asking an old schoolfellow of mine, Hettie Taylor, to come and
+ spend a few weeks with us. She lives in London, and she will be delighted
+ with the change to the country, I know. What do you say?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Beginning to feel lonely already?” he asked, glancing up at her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh no, not at all. Only I have been thinking of her, and should like to
+ have her with me again for a little while. I am sure you will like her.
+ She is very pretty—such beautiful brown hair and eyes—and
+ decidedly intellectual.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ask her by all means, then.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thanks. I will write to her to-day. No, not to-day—I shall be busy
+ seeing after the children’s picnic. Will you not come, dear? You know you
+ love children.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “To a picnic, my dear girl!” cried Mr. Haldane aghast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, in Barton Wood. The children are all going in a couple of waggons.
+ And there will be some of the old people there if the weather is fine. Do
+ come.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “A picnic, my dear Nell, is pure atavism—it is one of those lapses
+ into savagery which betray the aboriginal arboreal blood,” said Mr.
+ Haldane, laughing. “No, no; I have too much respect for the civilization
+ of the century and for my personal comfort to willingly retrograde to the
+ Drift Period.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER X. THE KISS.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he artist in
+ search of a pretty rural subject could not do better than paint a village
+ holiday—a holiday from which the men and women are all but excluded,
+ and the village school-children and the old people are gathered together
+ for a voyage through the leafy lanes to the picturesque playground of a
+ neighbouring wood. Such an enjoyable spectacle as that presented on the
+ day of the Omberley school-treat deserved to be immortalized by art, if
+ only for the sake of filling a city parlour with a sense of eternal
+ summer. It was a glorious August morning that laughed out over Omberley on
+ the day of the great picnic. The young people were astir early, for it had
+ been impossible to sleep from the excitement they felt after the first
+ glimmer of dawn. About ten o’clock the streets were gay with troops of
+ children, clean, rosy-cheeked, and dressed in their Sunday clothes, who
+ went singing to the rendezvous at the schoolhouse. There they were
+ received by Miss Dora Greatheart, who inspected them all, and expressed
+ her approbation at finding them so neat and prim. In twos and threes the
+ old people, the men in tall hats and swallow-tailed coats for the most
+ part, and the women in their best black gowns and church bonnets, came
+ slowly along the road, gossiping and laughing and breathing hard with the
+ weakness of old age. Then came the musicians—old Gabriel Ware, the
+ sexton, with his fiddle, and two younger men, one of whom played the
+ concertina and the other the cornopean, each with a huge nosegay in his
+ breast and wearing the jauntiest air conceivable. There was a happy buzz
+ of excitement about the schoolhouse as the people assembled; a joyous
+ babble of the clear treble voices of little lads and lasses, and the
+ piping notes of garrulous patriarchs and ancient dames; a strange picture,
+ as pathetic as it was pretty, of bright young faces and dancing little
+ figures mingling among gray wrinkled visages and frail stooping shapes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, Dora, we are to have a fine day,” said Edith, as she entered the
+ garden and shook hands with the schoolmistress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Splendid; only we shall be a little late in starting. We should have been
+ off at ten, and the waggons have not come yet. Why, here is old Daddy
+ coming!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She had stepped out to the road to look for the waggons, and now she went
+ to welcome the new arrival whom she called Daddy. He was a very old, very
+ wiry little man, with a funny little face full of wrinkles, a pair of
+ little grey eyes, and a perfectly bald head. This was the oldest
+ inhabitant of Omberley; and though he was in his ninety-second year, he
+ was as brisk and hearty as many who were twenty years his juniors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Well, Daddy, you have actually come!” said Dora, shaking hands with him.
+ “I am very glad. And how do you feel to-day? Pretty strong and hearty?’
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Strong as Samson, mistress, and hearty as—hearty as anything,”
+ replied the old man, with a chuckle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Please, miss,” said a young woman who accompanied him, “mother sends her
+ duty, and will you kindly take care of him and see as he doesn’t go
+ a-thinking.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Daddy’s only symptom of senility was an aptitude to fall into a state of
+ unconsciousness, and in these cases, which sometimes lasted for hours
+ together, he would sit down wherever he was, and consequently ran
+ considerable risks when he went out-of-doors alone. Though the old fellow
+ was quite unable to give any account of himself during these lapses into
+ oblivion, he always stoutly declared that he had been only thinking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And please, miss, you’ll find his bacca-box and his pipe in his tail
+ pocket, and his hankercher, and the matches is in his vest pocket. He do
+ forget where he puts his things.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Daddy laughed scornfully.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I never forgets nothing, I don’t,” he said boastingly. “I can mind o’ the
+ great beech as was blown down on the green in the whirlywind of ‘92; ay, I
+ mind——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A loud cheer from the school children interrupted the flow of Daddy’s
+ reminiscences. The greeting was intended for the vicar and the patroness
+ of the festival, Mrs. Haldane, who now drove up to the school-house. She
+ was already acquainted with Dora, but she had not yet met either Edith or
+ the oldest inhabitant. Mr. Santley introduced both as the waggons came in
+ sight, and at once the cheering was renewed, and the children streamed out
+ into the road. What a fine sight those waggons were v—the long,
+ curved, wheeled ships of the inland farmer, painted yellow and red, and
+ drawn by big horses, with huge collars and bright iron chains! The
+ semicircular canvas awning had been removed, but the wooden arches which
+ supported it were wreathed with leaves and flowers, and festoons hung
+ overhead between arch and arch. The horses, too, were gaily decked out,
+ each having a nosegay between its ears, and its mane and tail tied up with
+ ribbons. The bottom of the waggons were covered with trusses of straw, to
+ make comfortable seats for the old folk. The more daring of the lads were
+ already clambering up the wheels, and securing seats on the flakes which
+ went along the sides of the rustic ship like a sort of outrigger.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Before allowing Daddy to be helped on board, Miss Greatheart beckoned to
+ her a little pale-faced girl who was obliged to use crutches.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Nannie dear, I want you to look after Daddy as much as you can. When you
+ are tired of him you must come and tell me. Don’t let him go away by
+ himself, and wake him up if he sleeps too long.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was said in a whisper to the child, who smiled and nodded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Now, Daddy, here’s little Nannie Swales,” said Dora; “I want you to take
+ care of her. You’re the only person I can trust to look after her
+ properly. And she likes to talk to you and see you smoke.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The little old man smiled and chuckled complacently.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Put her aside of me, mistress, and I’ll see as no ill comes to her.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What could have been more charmingly idyllic than those two great waggons,
+ crowded with little shining-eyed tots, merry lads and lasses, withered old
+ men and women, all happy and contented? The blue sky laughed down on them;
+ the green leaves and flowers embowered them; and as a start was; made, one
+ of the musicians struck up “For we’ll a-hunting go” on the concertina, and
+ a score of clear, fresh voices joined in the jovial song.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through the village, which turned out to wave hands to them as they passed
+ singing and cheering, away through gold-green stretches of ripening
+ harvest, past empty fields where the hay had all been cut and carted,
+ between level expanses of root crops lying green in the hot sun, till at
+ last the dark embankment of Barton Wood rises above the distant sky. How
+ cool and refreshing it is, after the glare of the midday sun, to get into
+ the green shadowland of these grand old beeches and sycamores!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The road winds leisurely as if to seek out the coolest recesses of the
+ wood, and beneath the great bunches of heavy foliage, what quiet, dim
+ distances one sees between the trunks, strewn thick with withered leaves,
+ through which the moss and grass and a thousand moist plants thrust their
+ emerald way, and blue and pink and yellow flowers are clustered in
+ cushions of velvet colour! A few yards away from the road the air seems
+ brown and transparent. That must be the reason why the leaves of the
+ mountain ash are so darkly green, and the berries so brilliantly crimson.
+ If you pluck a bunch and take it out of the wood, you will find it has
+ become disenchanted; the colour is no longer the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The road is not a highway, but leads to an old quarry of brown sandstone.
+ There has been no work done here for a few years, but many generations of
+ stonemasons have plied hammer and chisel in this picturesque workshop. It
+ is a tradition that the stone of Foxglove Manor, old as it is, was got
+ here. The old church was built from these brown walls of stone; so was the
+ Vicarage, and so were the windowsills and facings of all the houses in
+ Omberley. It is an unusually large quarry, for a great deal of stone has
+ been taken away during these two hundred odd years. A great deal of
+ half-shaped stone lies about in large square and oblong blocks, both on
+ the floor of the quarry, and among the trees at its entrance. The trees
+ must have sprung up since many of these blocks were cut, otherwise it is
+ not easy to see why they should have been put where you now find them. On
+ two sides the walls of rock are high and precipitous, but on the others
+ the grass and ferns and beeches are carried into the quarry as on the
+ swell of a green wave. A stone shed and hut, roofed with red tiles, stand
+ at the foot of one of these slopes, and here the commissariat department
+ has established itself. A romantic, green, cosy, convenient spot for a
+ picnic and a dance!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The waggons were driven right into the quarry, and the horses were hobbled
+ and allowed to graze beneath the trees. The hour before dinner was spent
+ in wandering through the woods gathering flowers and berries, in rolling
+ about on the soft grass, or in smoking and chatting among the blocks of
+ sandstone. When the cornopean sounded the signal for the feast, the
+ youngsters came trooping in, dancing and eager to begin, for the
+ excitement had prevented most of them from taking breakfast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what a luxurious feast it was The vicar, Mrs. Haldane, Edith, and Miss
+ Greatheart, went about the various groups seeing that every one was well
+ supplied with what they liked best. After the cold meats, pies, and
+ pastry, came a liberal distribution of fruit and milk to the children, and
+ a glass of wine to the old people; and at this point Daddy was made the
+ object of so much nudging and whispering and signalling, that at last he
+ got upon his feet and made a wonderful little speech on behalf of the
+ company, keeping his wine-glass in his hand all the time, and every now
+ and then holding it up between his eye and the light with the shrewd air
+ of a connoisseur. Then there were three cheers for Mrs. Haldane, and three
+ cheers for the vicar, three for Dora and for Edith, and happily some young
+ rascal, whose milk had been too strong for him, proposed in a frightened
+ scream three cheers for. Daddy, which were very heartily given by all the
+ school children, though the seniors looked much shocked and surprised at
+ so daring a demonstration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In about an hour the racing and games were to begin, and meanwhile Mrs.
+ Haldane, the vicar, and the two young ladies were to have lunch together.
+ It is not necessary to enter into any detail of the various sports which
+ took place, or to linger over the dancing and merrymaking that followed.
+ When the fun was at its height, and Daddy was capering gaily to the
+ jigging of the small orchestra, Edith, who felt only half interested,
+ slipped quietly away into the wood. She was not surprised or aggrieved
+ that Mr. Santley paid so much attention to the lady of the Manor, but she
+ felt hurt that he seemed so completely to forget and overlook herself. She
+ wished now to be a little alone in Arden, for Edith loved the woods, and
+ in every glade she could imagine in her fanciful moments that Jaques, or
+ Rosalind, or Touchstone had just gone by, so closely had she associated
+ the dramatic idyl with every piece of English forest-land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She followed at haphazard a foot-track that went through the trees until
+ she reached a brook, which she found she could cross by means of three
+ slippery-looking stepping-stones, against which the water bickered and
+ gurgled as it raced along. All the steep banks were knee-deep in beautiful
+ ferns close by the waters edge, and higher up the slope grew luxurious
+ tufts of wild flowers. The sound of-the water was very pleasant to hear,
+ and when she had nimbly jumped across it, instead of following the path,
+ she went up the side of the stream to where a mountain ash leaned its
+ dense clusters of blood-bright berries right across. At the foot of the
+ tree was a large boulder, and, after a glance round her, she sat down and
+ drew off her shoes and stockings. The weather was warm, and the clear,
+ sun-flecked water was irresistibly inviting. There she sat for some time,
+ dreamily paddling with her little white feet, like a pretty dryad whose
+ tree grew in too dry a soil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She had finished playing with the cool stream, and was letting her feet
+ dry in the patches of sunlight that pierced through the branches above
+ her, when she heard a sound of voices. She hastily tried to draw on her
+ stockings, but her skin was still too moist; and so, gathering her feet
+ under her skirt, she concealed herself as much as possible from the
+ observation of the intruders. As they approached she recognized the voices
+ with a start, and crouched down behind the boulder more closely than
+ before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We can go no further this way,” said Mrs. Haldane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh yes, we can. I will assist you over the stones,” the vicar rejoined.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “They look very treacherous and slippery, and the water makes one nervous,
+ running so fast.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Look, it is quite safe!” said the vicar; and Edith, peeping from the side
+ of the boulder, saw him step quickly across the brook. “It is a pity you
+ should miss the old Roman camp, when you are so near it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “If you will come back and assist me from this side, I will try them,”
+ said Mrs. Haldane..
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar returned across the brook, and Edith saw the lady gather her
+ dress and prepare to step on to the first stone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Now, you must be ready to reach me your hand in case I need it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, you will find it quite easy when you try. Don’t stop, but go right
+ across without hesitation.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane jumped fairly enough on to the first boulder, but, instead of
+ allowing the forward impetus to carry her on, she tried to stop and steady
+ herself on the narrow footing among the rushing water. She lost at once
+ her balance and her courage, and turning to him with outstretched arms,
+ she cried out, “Quick! quick! I shall fall!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She threw herself back to the side as she spoke, and he caught her in his
+ arms. Her arms were about his neck, her face close to his; he felt her
+ breath upon his cheek. It was only for an instant, and as she tried to
+ recover herself, their eyes met with a flash of self-consciousness. In the
+ passionate excitement of that supreme moment he strained her to his
+ breast, and pressed his lips to her in a long, violent kiss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith sprang to her feet as though she had been stung; but instantly she
+ recollected herself, and sank down into her hiding-place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane tore herself from the arms that encircled her, and fronted
+ the vicar with a flushed, angry face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you mad, Mr. Santley?” she asked indignantly. “Allow me to pass at
+ once.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stood aside trembling, white, and speechless; and she swept by him and
+ hurried back through the wood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar looked after her, but stood as if rooted to the spot; while
+ Edith, heedless of the hard stones and her naked feet, ran down wildly to
+ the stepping-stones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He turned as she approached, and there, with the water whirling between
+ them, she confronted him like his outraged conscience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER XI. EDITH.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ |Is this your fidelity? is this your love?” she asked bitterly.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ The deadly pallor of the vicars face had given place to a flush of guilt
+ and shame. He crossed the brook and stood beside her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Edith, I have done wrong. Can you forgive me?” he asked, attempting to
+ take her hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do not touch me, Mr. Santley!” she exclaimed, stepping back from him. “Do
+ not speak to me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Will you not forgive me, Edith?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ask God to forgive you. It matters little now whether I forgive or not.
+ Please go away and leave me.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I cannot leave you in this manner. Say you forgive. I confess I have done
+ wrong, but it was in the heat of passion, it was not premeditated.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The heat of passion! Was it only in the heat of passion that you——
+ Oh, go at once, Mr. Santley! Go before I say what had better be left
+ unspoken!” The vicar paused and looked at her anxiously; but Edith,
+ throwing her shoes and stockings on the ground, sat down on a stone, and
+ resting her pale, unhappy face on her hands, gazed with a hard, fixed
+ expression at the water.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Dearest Edith, try to believe that what I did was only an act of
+ momentary madness; blame me if you will, for I cannot too severely blame
+ myself, but do not look so relentless and unforgiving.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She never stirred or gave any indication that she had heard him, but sat
+ staring at the water.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You will be sorry for your unkindness afterwards,” he continued.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She paid no heed to him, and he saw it was hopeless to try to effect a
+ reconciliation at the present moment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Since you command me to go, I will go.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Still she appeared not to have heard him. He went back across the brook,
+ and, glancing back once or twice, disappeared in the wood. A minute or two
+ later he stole back again, and saw that she was still sitting by the brook
+ in the same stony attitude. A vague sense of uneasiness took possession of
+ him. He knew that even the meekest, frailest, and gentlest of women are
+ capable of the most tragic extremities when under the sway of passion. Yet
+ what could he do? She would not speak to him, and was deaf to all he could
+ say in extenuation of his conduct. Trusting to the effect of a little
+ quiet reflection, and to the love which he knew she felt for him, he
+ resolved at length to leave her to herself. After all he had, it seemed to
+ him, more to fear from Mrs. Haldane than from Edith. To what frightful
+ consequences he had exposed himself by that act of folly! Would she tell
+ her husband? Would the story leak out and become the scandal of the
+ country side? With a sickening dread of what the future had in store for
+ him, he retraced his steps to the quarry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Haldane’s first impulse was to order her carriage and at once drive
+ home, but her hurried walk through the wood gradually became slower as she
+ reflected on the strange interpretation that would be put upon so sudden a
+ departure. She had brought the vicar, and if she now hastened away without
+ him, evil tongues would soon be busied with both her name and his. For the
+ sake of the office he held, and for her own sake as well, she resolved to
+ be silent on what had happened. She felt sure that the vicar would be
+ sufficiently punished by the stings of his own conscience, and if any
+ future chastisement were required he should find it in her distance and
+ frigid treatment of him. Consequently, when Mrs. Haldane reached the
+ quarry she assumed a cheerful, friendly air, stopped to say a few kind
+ words to the old people, and interested herself in the amusements of the
+ children. It was now drawing near tea-time, and the sun was westering.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Santley felt relieved when he found that Mrs. Haldane had not abruptly
+ left, as he dreaded she would do, but he made no attempt to speak to her
+ or attract her attention. At tea-time she took a cup in her hand and
+ joined a group of little girls, instead of taking her place at the table
+ set aside for her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar’s eye glanced restlessly about for Edith, but she had not obeyed
+ the summons of the cornopean, and in the bustle and excitement, her
+ absence was not noticed. It was only when the horses had been put into the
+ shafts, and the children, after being counted, were taking their places in
+ the waggons, that Miss Greatheart missed her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have you seen Miss Dove, Mr. Santley?” she asked, after she had searched
+ in vain through the little crowd for Edith. “I don’t think she was at
+ tea.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “She went in the direction of the old camp,” replied the#vicar, hurriedly;
+ “she cannot have heard the signal. Do not say anything. I think I shall be
+ easily able to find her. If Mrs. Haldane asks for me, will you say I have
+ gone to look for her? You can start as soon as you are ready; we shall
+ easily overtake you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So saying, Mr. Santley plunged into the wood, and hurried to the brook.
+ Edith was still sitting where he had left her, but she had in the
+ meanwhile put on her shoes and stockings. Instead of the fixed, determined
+ expression, her face now wore a look of intense wretchedness, and
+ evidently she had been crying. She looked up at the sound of his
+ footsteps.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Edith, we are going home,” he said, as he reached the edge of the stream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You can go,” was the answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But not without you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, without me. I am not going home. I am never going home any more. I
+ have no home. Oh! mother, mother!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The last words were uttered in a low, sobbing voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Come, come, you must not speak like that. You must go home. What would
+ your poor aunt say if you did anything so foolish?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, what would she say if she knew how I have disgraced her and myself?
+ No, I cannot go home any more.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “But you cannot stay here all night,” said the vicar, with a chill,
+ sinking tremor at the heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She gave no answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Edith, my dear girl, for God’s sake do not say you are thinking of doing
+ anything rash!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What else can I do? What else am I fit for but disgrace and a miserable
+ end? Oh, Mr. Santley, you swore to me that before God I was your true
+ wife. I believed you then. I did not think you were only acting in a
+ moment of passion. But now I see that it was a dreadful sin. I was not
+ your wife; and oh! what have you made me instead?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was very pale, and he trembled from head to foot as he listened to her
+ words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Do not speak so loud,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What! do you feel ashamed? Are you afraid of any one knowing? But God
+ knows it now, and my poor, poor mother knows it—God help me!—and
+ all the world will know it some day.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Edith, you will not ruin me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have you not ruined me? Have you not cast me off for a woman who does not
+ even care for you—for another man’s wife? Oh no, do not be afraid. I
+ will take my shame with me in silence. No one shall be able to say a word
+ against you now, but all the world will know at the last.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Edith, listen to me. I will tell you everything; I will hide nothing from
+ you; but do not condemn me unheard. All that I said to you was true, and
+ is still true. Till <i>she</i> came, I did really and most truly love you
+ with all my heart and soul. You were my very wife, in God’s eyes, if love
+ and truth be, as they are, what makes the validity of marriage. I did not
+ deceive you; I did not speak in a moment of passion. Before Heaven I took
+ you for my wife, and before Heaven I believed myself your husband.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And then she came!” interposed Edith, bitterly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And then she came. I have told you all she was to me once, all I hoped
+ she would one day be. But I have not told you how I have struggled to be
+ true to you in every word and thought. It has been a hard and a bitter
+ struggle—all the more hard and bitter that I have failed. I confess,
+ Edith, that I have not been true. But are we all sinless? are we perfect?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “We can at least be honourable. Your love of her is a crime.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Her beauty maddens me. She is my evil angel. To see her is to love her
+ and long for her. And instead of helping me to conquer temptation, instead
+ of trying to save me from myself, you cast me from you, you upbraid my
+ weakness, you taunt me with your unhappiness. When she is not near, my
+ better nature turns to you. You help me to believe in God, in goodness;
+ she drives me to unbelief and atheism. Did you fancy I was a saint? Have
+ not I my passions and temptations as well as other men? Even the just man
+ falls seven times a day; if you indeed loved me as a true wife, you would
+ find it in your heart to forgive even unto seventy times seven.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You know how I have loved!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “<i>Have</i> loved! Ay, and how easily you have ceased to love!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No, no; I have never ceased to love you. It is because I must still love
+ and love you that I am so wretched.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then how can you be so unforgiving?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, I am not unforgiving. I can forgive you anything, so long as I know
+ that I am dear to you. Seven and seventy-seven times.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you forgive me now?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I do. But you will never any more——”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You must help me not to; you must pray for me, and assist me to be ever
+ faithful to you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will, I will.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He drew her to him, and kissed her on the lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you will come home now?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, with you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The waggons have started, and we must walk quickly to overtake them.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, I don’t care now how far we have to walk.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mrs. Haldane, however, may have waited for us.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Edith stopped short.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I couldn’t go near her.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Consider a moment, darling. She knows nothing about you, and she does not
+ know that you know anything about her. It might look strange if she drove
+ home without me, after bringing me here. I feared at first that she would
+ have left instantly, but she did not. She may not wish to give people any
+ reason for talking about any sudden coolness between us. Do you understand
+ me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes. I will go.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar had correctly divined the course Mrs. Haldane had pursued. When
+ she learned that Mr. Santley had gone in search of Edith, she drove very
+ leisurely along, so that they might overtake her. She had just got clear
+ of the wood when, on looking round, she observed them coming through the
+ trees. She drew up till they reached her; and when they had got in, she
+ started a brisk conversation with Edith on all manner of topics. She was
+ in her liveliest mood, and to Edith it seemed almost incredible that the
+ scene she had witnessed at the brook was a very serious fact, and not an
+ hallucination. Edith noticed, however, that the vicar seldom spoke, and
+ that, though Mrs. Haldane listened and answered when he made any remark,
+ the conversation was between Mrs. Haldane and herself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At parting Mrs. Haldane gave him her finger-tips, and was apparently
+ paying more attention to Edith when she said good-bye to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER XII. CONSCIENCE.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>rs. Haldane came
+ no more to the Vicarage that week, and on Sunday she did not remain, as
+ she had hitherto done, for the communion at the close of the morning
+ service. She was evidently deeply offended, and was doing all she could to
+ avoid meeting the vicar. With him that week had been one of terrible
+ conflict. Tortured with remorse and shame, he was still mad with passion.
+ That kiss was still burning on his lips. He still could feel that
+ voluptuous form in his arms. It seemed, indeed, as though Mrs. Haldane
+ were his evil genius, driving him on to destruction. He was unable to
+ pray; and when he sat down to prepare his sermon, her face rose between
+ him and the paper, and, starting up, he rushed from the house and walked
+ rapidly away into the country. This was in the forenoon, and he walked on
+ and on at a quick pace for several hours. He passed little hamlets and
+ farmsteads which he did not notice, for his mind was absorbed in a
+ wretchedness so intense that he scarcely was conscious of what he was
+ doing. In the afternoon he came to a wood, and, worn out with fatigue and
+ agitation, he entered it and flung himself beneath the shadow of a tree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There he lay, a prey to conscience, till the sun went down. He had had no
+ food since morning, and he was now weak and nervous. He returned from the
+ wood to the high-road and retraced his steps homeward. As he passed by the
+ wayside cottages, he was tempted once or twice to stop and ask for bread
+ and milk, but after a mental contest he each time conquered the pangs of
+ hunger and thirst, and went on again. The fathers of the desert had
+ subdued the lusts of the flesh by hunger and stripes and physical
+ suffering, and if mortification could exorcise the evil spirit within him,
+ he would have no mercy on himself. He was a great distance from home, and,
+ notwithstanding his resolution to suffer and endure, he was several times
+ forced to sit down and rest on heaps of broken stones by the wayside; and
+ on one of these occasions a spray of bramble-berries hanging over the
+ hedge caught his eye, and looked so rich and sweet that he plucked one and
+ raised it to his mouth. The next moment, however, he had flung it away
+ from him. On another occasion he was startled to his feet by the sound of
+ wheels, and as he walked on he was overtaken by a neighbouring farmer in
+ his gig, who drew up as he was passing, and touched his hat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Making for home, Mr. Santley?” he asked, as he shook up the cushion on
+ the vacant seat beside him. “I can put you down at your own door, sir.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thank you, Mr. Henderson; I prefer walking, and I have some business to
+ attend to.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “All right, sir. It’s a fine evening for a walk. Good-bye.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Good-bye.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar watched the gig diminish on the distant road till at length the
+ hedgerows concealed it, with a certain sense of stoical satisfaction. He
+ felt he was not all weakness; there was yet left some power of
+ self-denial, some fortitude to endure self-inflicted chastisement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was nearly dark when he arrived again in Omberley. The windows were
+ ruddy with fire and gaslight; there were no children playing in the
+ streets; several of the small shopkeepers who kept open late, were now at
+ last putting up their shutters. There was a genial glow from the
+ red-curtained window of the village inn, and a sound of singing and
+ merriment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why should I not go in and join them?” he thought to himself. “What an
+ effect it would have, if I stepped into the sanded taproom and called for
+ a pipe and a quart of beer! The vicar smoking a long clay, with his
+ frothing pewter on the deal table beside him! Why not? Has not the vicar
+ his gross appetites as well as you? Why should you be scandalized,
+ friends, if he should indulge in the same merry way as yourselves? Is he
+ not a mere man like you, with the same animal needs and cravings? Fools,
+ who shrink with horror from the humanity of a man because he wears a black
+ coat and talks to you of duty and sacrifice and godliness! How little you
+ know the poor wretch to whom you look for counsel and comfort and
+ mediation with Heaven!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was turning away, when the taproom door was flung open, and half a
+ dozen tipsy men, cursing and quarrelling, staggered out into the street.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among them was a handsome, swarthy girl of two and twenty, gaily dressed
+ in colours, with a coloured handkerchief bound over her black hair, and a
+ guitar in her hand. They were evidently quarrelling about the girl, who
+ was doing her best to make peace among them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You does me no good by your fighting and kicking up a row, masters.
+ Decent folks won’t let a wench into the house when there’s always a fight
+ got up about her. You spoils my market, and gets me an ill name, masters.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Any way, Jack Haywood shan’t lay a finger on thee, Sal!” cried a burly
+ young fellow, deep in his cups, as he clenched his horny fist and shook it
+ at Jack.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “What is’t to you what Jack does?” returned the girl, saucily. “Neither
+ Jack nor thee shall lay a finger on me against my will. I reckon I can
+ take care o’ myself, masters.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ay, ay, thou canst that!” assented several voices.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicar, who had stood to witness this scene, now stepped in among the
+ group. The men recognized him, and, touching their forelocks, slunk away
+ in sheepish silence. He uttered not a word, but his pale face sobered them
+ like a dash of cold water. Only the girl was left, and she stood, red and
+ frightened, while her hands were nervously busied with the guitar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are back again, Sal, and at your old ways,” said the vicar, in a low
+ voice. “I see, all good advice and all encouragement are wasted on you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I can’t help it, sir,” said the girl, sullenly. “I was born bad; I’m of a
+ bad lot. It’s no use trying any more. It’s in the blood and the bone, and
+ it’ll come out, in spite of everything.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Have you made much to-day?” asked the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “A shilling.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Where are you going to stop tonight?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “At old Mary Henson’s, in Bara Street.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Then, go home at once, Sal,” said the vicar, giving her a half-crown.
+ “Will you promise me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you will speak to no man tonight? You promise?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes,” said the girl, taking the money, with a strange look of inquiry at
+ the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And try to say your prayers before you go to sleep.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The girl dropped a curtsy, and went slowly down the street. With a bitter
+ laugh, the vicar pursued his way homeward.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “In the blood and the bone! In the blood and the bone!” he; repeated to
+ himself. “You are right, girl; we are born bad—born bad. The bestial
+ madness of ages and aeons, the lust and lasciviousness of countless
+ generations, are still in our blood, and our instincts are still the
+ instincts of the beast and the savage. Hypocrite and blasphemer that I am!
+ Whited sepulchre, reeking with corruption! Living lie and mask of
+ holiness! O God, what a wretch am I, who dare, to speak of purity and
+ repentance to this woman!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he reached the Vicarage, his sister was anxiously awaiting him, and
+ supper was ready.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Where have you been so long?” she asked, a little impatiently. “I think
+ you might leave word when you expect to be detained beyond your usual
+ time. It is eleven o’clock.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I could not say how long I should be,” replied the vicar, with a weary
+ look, which touched his sister and changed her ill-temper to solicitude.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You are quite tired out, poor fellow,” she said, laying her hand on his
+ shoulder. “Well, come to supper. It is ready.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I cannot take anything at present,” replied Mr. Santley. “I will, go and
+ do a little of my sermon.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Shall I leave something out for you, then?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Yes, please. Good night.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He went into the study, lit the gas, and, locking the door, flung himself
+ into an armchair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “In the blood! in the blood!” he bitterly communed with himself. “And,
+ with all our wild dreams and aspirations, we are but what science says we
+ are, the conqueror of the lascivious ape, the offspring of some common
+ ancestral bestiality, which transmitted to the simian its animalism free
+ and unfettered except by appetite, and to man the germs of a moral law
+ which must be for ever at variance with his sensual instincts. God! we are
+ worse than apes—we the immortals, with our ideals of spirit and
+ purity!”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He rose, and going across the room to the tall, carved oak cupboard, whose
+ contents were a secret to all but himself, he unlocked it and opened the
+ folding doors. The light fell on a large, beautiful statue of the Madonna,
+ with the Infant Christ in her arms. The figure was in plaster, exquisitely
+ coloured, and of a rare loveliness. He looked at it abstractedly for a
+ long while.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mother of God!” he exclaimed at length, with passionate fervour.
+ “Spotless virgin, woman above all women glorified, the solitary boast of
+ our tainted nature—oh, dream and desire of men striving for their
+ lost innocence, how vainly have I worshipped and prayed to thee! How
+ ardently have I believed in thy immaculate motherhood! How yearningly I
+ have cried to thee for thy aid and intercession! And no answer has been
+ granted to my supplications. My feverish exaltation has passed from me,
+ leaving me weak and at the mercy of my senses. Art thou, too, but a poetic
+ myth of a later superstition—an idealization more beautiful, more
+ divine than the frail goddesses of Greece and Rome? The art and poetry of
+ the world have turned to thee for inspiration, the ascetic has filled the
+ cold cell with the shining vision of thee, altars have been raised to thee
+ over half the globe, the prayers of nations ascend to thee, and art thou
+ but a beautiful conception of the heart, powerless to aid or to hear thy
+ suppliants?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He paused, as if, indeed, he expected some sign or word in answer to his
+ wild appeal. Then, closing the doors again and locking them, he went
+ towards his-desk. On it lay the manuscript of the sermon he had preached
+ on the Unknown God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The Unknown God!” he exclaimed. “What if her husband is right! What if,
+ indeed, there be no God, no God for us, no God of whom we shall ever be
+ conscious! All science points that way. When the man is dead, his soul is
+ dead too. We deny it; but what is our denial worth? It is our interest to
+ deny it. All phenomena contradict our denial. No man has ever risen from
+ the grave to give us assurance of our immortality. Ah, truly, ‘if there be
+ no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen; and if Christ be
+ not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain!’”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He paced the room excitedly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Why act the knave and the hypocrite longer? Why delude the world with a
+ false hope of a future that can never be? Why preach prayer and sacrifice,
+ and suffering and patience, when this life is all? If Christ is not risen,
+ our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He again paced the room; and then, going to a drawer where the keys of the
+ church were kept, he took them, and stole noiselessly out of the house.
+ All was very still outside. The stars were shining, and it was duskily
+ clear. He traversed the churchyard, and reaching the porch he unlocked the
+ door and entered. It was quite dark, except that the tall, narrow windows
+ looked grey against the blackness of the rest of the building, and a
+ little bead of flame burned in the sanctuary lamp. He closed the door
+ after him, and went up the echoing nave to the chancel. Thence he groped
+ his way to the pulpit, and ascending he looked down into the darkness
+ before him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stood there in silence, straining his eyes into the gloom, and
+ gradually there came out of the darkness faint, spectral rows of faces,
+ turned up to his with a horrified and bewildered aspect. He uttered no
+ word, but in his brain he was preaching from the text of Paul, and proving
+ that Christ, indeed, had never risen, and that their faith was vain. This
+ world was all, and there was nothing beyond it. Vice and virtue were but
+ social and physical distinctions, implying that the consequences of the
+ one were destructive of happiness, of the other were conducive to
+ happiness. Sin was a fiction, and the sense of sinfulness a morbid
+ development of the imagination. Every man was a law unto himself, and that
+ law must be obeyed. A mans actions were the outcome of his constitution.
+ He was not morally responsible for them. Indeed, moral responsibility was
+ a philosophical error. In dumb show was that long, phrenzied sermon
+ preached to a phantom congregation. At the close the vicar, omitting the
+ usual form of benediction, descended from the pulpit, staggered across the
+ chancel, and fell in a swoon at the foot of the steps which led to the
+ altar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHAPTER XIII. IN THE LABORATORY.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="pfirst">
+ <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he grey dawn was
+ glimmering through the chancel when Mr. Santley regained consciousness. He
+ looked wonderingly about him, and at first was unable to understand how he
+ came to be in his present position. That physical collapse had been a
+ merciful relief from a state of mental tension which had become
+ intolerable. He felt faint but calm, and the horrible excitement of the
+ last few hours presented itself to his memory as a sort of ghastly
+ nightmare from which he had been providentially awakened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He rose and went out into the churchyard. The air was moist and cool. A
+ strange white mist lay in fantastic pools and streaks on the bare
+ hayfields. The corn was full of an indistinct white gauzy vapour. So were
+ the trees. There was not much of it in the open air. It had a spectral
+ look, and, like spirits, it seemed to require some material thing to
+ interpenetrate and rest upon. The grass was heavy with dew, and the
+ gravelled walk as dark coloured as though there had been rain. From the
+ corn came the sound of innumerable chirpings and twitterings. The fields
+ seemed to be swarming with sweet, sharp musical notes. In the trees, too,
+ though there was no stir of wings, there was a very tumult of bird-song—not
+ the full, joyous outpouring, but a ceaseless orchestral tuning up and
+ rehearsing as it were. The familiar graveyard in this unusual misty light,
+ and alive with this strange music, seemed a place in which ne had never
+ been before. The effect was as novel as the first appearance of a
+ well-known landscape buried in snow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The newness of what was so familiar excited an indefinable interest in
+ him. He felt somehow as though he had passed through the valley of the
+ shadow, and this was the day after death—that death by which we
+ shall not all die, but by which we and all things shall be changed. He
+ lingered in that mental state in which thought expands beyond the bounds
+ of consciousness, and it was not till a low, faint flush of red began to
+ colour the east that he returned to the Vicarage, and, throwing himself on
+ his bed, fell into the deep, dreamless sleep of exhaustion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was fortunate for Mr. Santley that he had inherited a magnificent
+ constitution, or the consequences of this wild conflict might have been
+ disastrous. He woke late, but the brief period of rest and unconsciousness
+ had repaired the reckless waste of nervous force. Only a profound sadness
+ remained as a testimony of the terrible nature of the emotion he had
+ endured. The rest of the week passed in a sort of weary, listless stupor
+ and the same heavy sadness. When Sunday came round, he shuddered as he
+ ascended the pulpit at the recollection of that phantasmal audience to
+ which he had last preached; but his intellect was clear and sane, and he
+ kept faithfully to the written discourse spread out before him. He was not
+ surprised that Mrs. Haldane left before he had any opportunity of speaking
+ to her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had half expected as much. She regarded him with a cold, haughty
+ contempt—a contempt too passionless to permit her even to avenge the
+ insult he had offered her by exposing him to his parishioners. She knew he
+ loved her—and indeed was not this folly proof of the frantic
+ character of his love?—and she knew that total loss of her would be
+ the greatest chastisement even vindictiveness could wish to inflict upon
+ him. It would have been possible for him, he thought, to bear in silence
+ any punishment from her except this icy contempt and utter indifference.
+ If she had hated him, if she had pursued him with bitter hostility, if she
+ had disgraced him, he could have endured it; it would have been no more
+ than he merited. But that she should simply ignore him, that she should
+ not consider it worth her while even to be angry, was an intolerable
+ humiliation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of all, he still loved her! It was useless to seek to delude
+ himself into any belief to the contrary. He loved her, in defiance of
+ honour, goodness; in spite of misery and shame; in spite of divine or
+ human law; in spite of man or God. He loved her with a mad, despairing
+ passion, which he might conceal from all eyes for a little while, but
+ which he could never quell; which he felt would some day break out in a
+ frantic paroxysm that would involve both him and her in a common ruin.
+ Home, position, reputation, this life and the next—he could
+ sacrifice all for her. He could not exist without her. To see her and be
+ never seen by her was a living hell. If he were, indeed, to be for ever
+ doomed to this misery, better that he should perish at once, and have done
+ for ever with the torture of being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This alternative presented itself to the vicar not merely as one of those
+ exaggerated expressions of feeling common to many men in moments of
+ unendurable pain or depression, but as a sober reality. An existence in
+ which Mrs. Haldane took no part and shared no interest was literally to
+ him an existence more hateful than self-destruction itself. On the Monday
+ he proceeded to the neighbouring market town, and bought a revolver and a
+ packet of cartridges. He loaded the weapon on the road, and threw the
+ remaining cartridges away. That evening he spent in looking over his
+ papers, a large number of which he burned. He then sat down, and wrote for
+ some time; but when he had finished, he threw what he had written into the
+ fire. What need was there to put any explanation on record? He then took
+ from the bookcase the great poem of Lucretius, and read till a late hour.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Next morning he arose early, and seemed in better spirits than he had been
+ for some time. He told his sister that he was going to walk over to
+ Foxglove Manor, and was not certain as to when he would return. He left
+ the house, humming a tune, and set out at a brisk pace through the
+ village. The weather was bright and inspiriting. The country never before
+ seemed so full of health and gladness and joyous life. The lark was
+ singing far up in the shining blue sky; butterflies went fluttering across
+ the road; whirring flights of birds along the hedgerows preceded him all
+ the way. He looked at everything and noticed everything—the bright
+ flowers growing among the wayside weeds; the snail which had crept on to
+ the footpath, and whose shell he carefully avoided. He observed too much
+ to think; but one thought, underlying this discursive activity of mind,
+ kept him company all the while—“I have struggled and prayed; I have
+ tried to believe and to trust; I can do no more. If there be a God who is
+ concerned in man, let him now give evidence of His providence.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he reached the Manor, he was ushered into the reception-room, where
+ he was not kept long waiting. Mrs. Haldane entered the apartment, and
+ received him with a chilling courtesy. She noticed that, though he had
+ advanced eagerly at her entrance, he had not offered her his hand; and now
+ that she had bowed to him with a certain constrained grace, he stood
+ regarding her hesitatingly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have come,” he said at last, in a low, nervous voice, “to throw myself
+ on your mercy, to beg your forgiveness, to ask you once more to restore me
+ your confidence and friendship.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I freely forgive you, Mr. Santley,” she replied at once. “It is better
+ that what has taken place should be forgiven and forgotten as speedily as
+ possible. But my confidence and friendship! How can I trust you any more?
+ And I did trust and esteem you so much. I regarded you—— But I
+ will not even reproach you with having destroyed my idealization of you.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Reproach me and censure me as you will,” he cried earnestly; “but do not
+ cast me away from you, do not be heartlessly indifferent to me. It lies in
+ your hands to make my life happy or miserable. It depends on you whether I
+ can live at all.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “That cannot be,” replied Mrs. Haldane, shaking her head gravely.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “It is and must be,” said the vicar. “All my future, both here and
+ hereafter, hangs on your decision now. I have fought with myself, and
+ prayed to God to be delivered from my bondage; but it is in vain. No
+ answer has been vouchsafed to my supplications; no grace, no strength has
+ been granted in my need. Had I prayed to the deaf impersonal power which
+ your husband believes in, I could not have been more hopelessly unheard or
+ unheeded. The conflict is over. I am the gladiator fallen in the arena,
+ and it rests with you to give the signal of reprieve or destruction.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I do not understand you, Mr. Santley,” she said, feeling alarmed and
+ excited. “What do you ask? What would you have me do?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, what would I have you do!” he exclaimed passionately; then, checking
+ himself abruptly, he continued eagerly, “I would have you be as you were
+ before I offended you. I would have you forgive my offence.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I have promised to forgive and forget it,” said Mrs. Haldane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No; do not forget it, but pardon it, and try to look upon it as more
+ venial than you now do. Oh, Ellen, had I not loved you beyond all that a
+ man values in this world, would it be possible to have so far fallen in
+ your esteem?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She frowned, and was about to interrupt him; but he went on hurriedly—“Do
+ not be angry. I will not speak to you of love again. I will only answer
+ your question. I would, as I have said, that you should forgive my
+ offence, and be the same to me as though it had never happened. Not only
+ my use in life, my happiness, my honour depend on this, but life itself. I
+ cannot exist without some share in your thoughts, in your interests, in
+ your regard. Life would be intolerable if you were to be wholly taken away
+ from me. Do I ask too much? Answer me quickly, for I am prepared for
+ either alternative. You and God—if, indeed, there be above us a God
+ who sees and cares—must now decide my course.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You frighten and bewilder me with your passion. I do not know what to
+ answer you. Indeed, I hardly know whether I understand you. I have
+ forgiven you. I bear you no ill will. I hope, indeed, that you may be
+ happy, and that you may soon find some one who will be worthier of your
+ love than I could have been. I am both sorry and ashamed of what has
+ happened, and I will try to forget it, both for your sake and my own. Have
+ I not said enough?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And the future?” he asked, with an anxious look.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “‘The future will be a continuation of the past, seeing that all is
+ forgiven and forgotten.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you will still allow me to speak to you, to see you? You will not
+ treat me with silence and indifference?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will be as I used to be,” said Ellen, with a look of doubt and
+ hesitation. “And you will <i>trust</i> me?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you to be trusted, Mr. Santley?” she asked in a low voice. “You know
+ how fully I trusted you before.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And you must trust me again if all is to be the same as it was. Is not
+ that our agreement?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I will try to, but the result will entirely depend upon yourself.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I cannot say how thankful and grateful I am to you,” he said, extending
+ his hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She took it, and he raised hers to his lips, though she coloured and tried
+ to withdraw it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Nay, it is but a token of my gratitude and submission. I am thankful to
+ live, and you do not know how certainly you have enabled me to live.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “My husband is in the laboratory,” said Mrs. Haldane, who felt uneasy, and
+ wished to bring this interview to a close.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Shall we join him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Certainly, if you wish it.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They found Mr. Haldane busily engaged in writing, while the
+ sinister-looking attendant, with the dark, startling eyes, was noiselessly
+ occupied in filling a number of flasks with some mysterious decoction
+ intended for immediate experiment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Ever busy!” exclaimed the vicar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Busier than ever just now,” replied Mr. Haldane. “I am preparing a paper
+ which I intend to read on Tuesday next before the scientific congress at
+ Paris.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are you going to Paris?” asked Mr. Santley, with surprise, and addressing
+ the question rather to Mrs. Haldane than her husband.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Mr. Haldane is going, but I remain here.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A look of relief passed over the vicar’s face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “And what is the subject of your paper, if curiosity be pardonable?” he
+ asked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Oh, it is a chapter from the great <i>opus</i> on morals. I call it ‘The
+ Problem of Suicide.’ A singularly fascinating subject to one who has paid
+ any attention to it, I assure you. Does it happen to have fallen in your
+ line of study?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I cannot say it has.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You would find some curious generalizations here, in that case,” said Mr.
+ Haldane, pointing to the sheets of paper on his desk. “For instance, I
+ suppose you would be hardly prepared to grant that suicide, which seems a
+ barbarous and unenlightened act, is really an effect of civilization, or
+ that an act which appears more than any other an evidence of individual
+ spontaneity, is in fact the inevitable issue of universal and absolute
+ social law.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “I am certainly not prepared to concede that.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “No; few persons unacquainted with the subject would be. Still, the facts
+ remain. The suicide who imagines he is rebelling against all law and
+ asserting his individual independence, is but illustrating the coercion of
+ the physical and psychical dispensation. Why, you shall not even choose
+ your own weapon of destruction, or select the spot in which you shall die.
+ Law will fix those apparently trivial details for you. If your suicide is
+ an Englishman, for example, he will prefer hanging to cutting and
+ stabbing, cutting and stabbing to drowning, drowning to poison, and poison
+ to firearms. With English women the order of preference is modified. A
+ third of the women, and hardly a seventh of the men, seek death by
+ drowning; while a seventh of the women poison themselves, but only a
+ fifteenth of the men. The ratios hold good from year to year—relatively
+ at least—for suicide is largely on the increase. You should look
+ into the matter for yourself. It is a most attractive social problem.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Perhaps Mr. Santley would like to look at your paper?” suggested Mrs.
+ Haldane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “You shall be very welcome to see it when I return,” said the philosopher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Thank you very much. I have no doubt it will be extremely interesting.
+ And when do you leave?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “The day after to-morrow. I shall spend a day or two in London, and
+ possibly a week or a fortnight in Paris. Indeed, I have some notion of
+ paying a flying visit to Berlin.”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That afternoon, as the vicar returned home, he paused by a pool in one of
+ the fields that skirted the high-road, and flung his revolver into it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Can it be possible,” he asked himself, “that man has no volition, no
+ independence of action; that his choice of life or death even is not a
+ choice, but a predetermined issue of mechanical forces?” He watched the
+ ripples die away on the water, and then resumed his way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ “Are we mere automata, accomplishing not our own wills, but the secret
+ purpose of a subtle agency, of whose control we are unconscious?”
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gradually the problem which perplexed him gave place to another wave of
+ thought. His step became firmer and more elastic, and his face brightened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The thought which effected this change in his demeanour was Mr. Haldane’s
+ departure. What might not happen in those few days of absence? Was not Mr.
+ Haldane also accomplishing an unknown, destiny? Might not this journey be
+ providential? Or say, rather an unanticipated road to the great end?
+ Suppose Mr. Haldane should never return!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The possibilities involved in that reflection!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he thought of Mrs. Haldane. For a week, perhaps for a fortnight, she
+ would be alone at the Manor. For a fortnight? Who could foretell—perhaps
+ for ever!
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ END OF VOL. I.
+ </h3>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+ </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Foxglove Manor, Volume I (of III), by
+Robert W. Buchanan
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+</pre>
+
+ </body>
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