The New Rector

"To be sure."

"Ah! then look here," Jack replied, laying his hand on Lindo's sleeve and looking up at him with an air of peculiar seriousness-"just tell me once more, so that I may have no doubt about it: Are you sure that from the time you docketed those letters until now you have never removed them-from this house, I mean?"

"Never!"

"Never let them go out of the house?"

"Never!" answered the rector firmly. "I am as certain of it as a man can be certain of anything."

"Thanks!" Jack cried. "All right. Good night." And that was all; for, turning abruptly, in a twinkling he had the door open and was gone, leaving the rector to go to bed in such a state of mystification as made him almost forget his fallen fortunes.

CHAPTER XIX

THE DAY AFTER

Oddly enough, the rector's first thought on rising next morning was of his curate. He had expected, as we have seen, that Clode would call before bedtime. Disappointed in this, he still felt so certain that the curate would hasten as soon as possible to offer his sympathy and assistance that after breakfast he repaired to his study for the express purpose of receiving him. To find one friend in need is good, but to find two is better. The young clergyman felt, as people in trouble of a certain kind do feel, that though he had told Jack all about it, it would be a relief to tell Stephen all about it also; the more as Jack, whom he had told, was his personal friend, while Clode was identified with the place and his unabated confidence and esteem-of retaining which the rector made no doubt-would go some way toward soothing the latter's wounded pride.

It was well, however, that Lindo, sitting down at his writing-table to await his visitor, found there some scattered notes upon which he could employ his thoughts, and which without any great concentration of mind he could form into a sermon. For otherwise his time would have been wasted. Ten o'clock came, and eleven, and half-past eleven; but no curate.

Mr. Clode, in fact, was engaged elsewhere. About half-past ten he turned briskly into the drive leading to Mrs. Hammond's house and walked up it at a good pace, with the step of a man who has news to tell, and is going to tell it. The morning was bright and sunny, the air crisp and fresh, yet not too cold. The gravel crunched pleasantly under his feet, while the hoar-frost melting on the dark green leaves of the laurels bordered his path with a million gems as brilliant as evanescent. Possibly the pleasure he took in these things, possibly some thought of his own, lent animation to the curate's face and figure as he strode along. At any rate, Miss Hammond, meeting him suddenly at a turn in the approach, saw a change in him, and, reading the signs aright, blushed.

"Well?" she said, smiling a question as she held out her hand. They had scarcely been alone together since the afternoon when the rector's inopportune call had brought about an understanding between them.

"Well?" he answered, retaining her hand. "What is it, Laura?"

"I thought you were going to tell me," she said, glancing up with shy assurance. The morning air was not fresher. She was so bright and piquant in her furs and with her dazzling complexion, that other eyes than her lover's might have been pardoned for likening her to the frost drops on the laurels. At any rate, she sparkled as they did.

He looked down at her, fond admiration in his eyes. Had he not come up on purpose to see her?

"I think it is all right," he said, in a slightly lower tone. "I think I may answer for it, Laura, that we shall not have much longer to wait."

She gazed at him, seeming for the moment startled and taken by surprise. "Have you heard of a living, then?" she murmured, her eyes wide, her breath coming and going.

He nodded.

"Where?" she asked, in the same low tone. "You do not mean-here!"

He nodded again.

"At Claversham!" she exclaimed. "Then will he have to go, really?"

"I think he will," Clode replied, a glow of triumph warming his dark face and kindling his eyes. "When Lord Dynmore left here yesterday he drove straight to Mr. Bonamy's. You hardly believe it, do you? Well, it is true, for I had it from a sure source. And, that being so, I do not think Lindo will have much chance against such an alliance. It is not as if he had many friends here, or had got on well with the people."

"The poor people like him," she urged.

"Yes," Clode answered sharply. "He has spent money among them. It was not his own, you see."

It was a brutal thing to say, and she cast a glance of gentle reproof at him. She did not remonstrate, however, but, slightly changing the subject, asked, "But even if Mr. Lindo goes, are you sure of the living?"

"I think so," he answered, smiling confidently down at her.

She looked puzzled. "How do you know?" she asked. "Did Lord Dynmore promise it to you?"

"No; I wish he had," he answered. "All the same, I think I am fairly sure of it without the promise." And then he related to her what the archdeacon had told him as to Lord Dynmore's intention of presenting the curates in future. "Now do you see, Laura?" he asked.

"Yes, I see," she answered, looking down and absently poking a hole in the gravel with the point of her umbrella.

"And you are content?"

"Yes," she answered, looking up brightly from a little dream of the rectory as it should be, when feminine taste had transformed it with the aid of Persian rugs and old china and the hundred knickknacks which are half a woman's life-"Yes, I am content, Mr. Clode."

"Say 'Stephen.'"

"I am quite content, Stephen," she answered obediently, a bright blush for a moment mingling with her smile.

He was about to make some warm rejoinder, when the sound of footsteps approaching from the house diverted his attention, and he looked up. The new-comer was Mrs. Hammond, also on her way into the town. She waved her hand to him. "Good morning," she cried in her cheery voice-"you are just the person I wanted to see, Mr. Clode. This is good luck. Now, how is he?"

"Who? Mrs. Hammond," said the curate, quite taken by surprise.

"Who?" she replied warmly, reproach in her tone. She was a kind-hearted woman, and the scene in her drawing-room had really cost her a few minutes' sleep. "Why, Mr. Lindo, to be sure. Whom else should I mean? I suppose you went in last night at once and told him how much we all sympathized with him? Indeed, I hope you did not leave him until you saw him well to bed, for I am sure he was hardly fit to be left alone, poor fellow!"

Mr. Clode stood silent, and looked troubled. Really, if it had occurred to him, he would have called to see Lindo. But it had not occurred to him, after what had happened-perhaps because he had been busied about things which "seemed worth while." He regretted now, since Mrs. Hammond seemed to think it so much a matter of course, that he had not done so; the more as the omission compelled him to choose his side earlier than he need have done. However, it was too late now. So he shook his head. "I have not seen him, Mrs. Hammond," he said gravely. "I have not been to the rectory."

"What! you have not seen him?" she cried in amazement.

"No, I have not," he answered, a slight tinge of hauteur in his manner. After all, he reflected that he would have found it painful to play another part before Laura after disclosing so much of his mind to her. "What is more, Mrs. Hammond," he continued, "I am not anxious to see him; for, to tell you the truth, I fear that the meeting could only be a painful one."

"Why, you do not mean to say," the lady answered in a low, awe-stricken voice, "that you think he knew anything about it, Mr. Clode?"

"At any rate," the curate replied firmly, "I cannot acquit him."

"Not acquit him! – Mr. Lindo!" she stammered.

"No, I cannot," Clode replied, striving to express in his voice and manner his extreme conscientiousness and the gloomy sense of responsibility under which he had arrived at his decision. "I cannot get out of my head," he continued, "Lord Dynmore's remark that, if the circumstances aroused suspicion in my mind, they could scarcely fail to apprise Mr. Lindo, who was more nearly concerned, of the truth, or something like the truth. Mind!" the curate added with a great show of candor, "I do not say, Mrs. Hammond, that Mr. Lindo knew. I only say I think he suspected."

"Well, that is very good of you!" Mrs. Hammond exclaimed, displaying a spirit and a power of sarcasm he had not expected. "I dare say Mr. Lindo will be much obliged to you for that! But, for my part, I think it is a distinction without a difference!"

"Oh, no!" the curate protested hastily.

"Well, I think it is, at any rate!" retorted the lady, very red in the face, and with all the bugles in her bonnet shaking. "However, everyone to his opinion. But that is not mine, and I am sorry it is yours. Why, you are his curate!" she added in a tone of indignant wonder, which brought the blood to Clode's cheeks, and made him bite his lip in impotent anger. "You ought to be the last person to doubt him!"

"Can I help it if I do?" he answered sullenly.

"Mother," said Laura quickly, intercepting the angry reply which was on Mrs. Hammond's lips, "if Mr. Clode thinks in that way, can he be blamed for telling us? We are not the town. What he has told us he has told us in confidence."

"A confidence Mrs. Hammond has made me bitterly regret," he rejoined, taking skilful advantage of her intervention.

Mrs. Hammond grunted. She was still angry, but she felt herself baffled. "Well, I do not understand these things, perhaps," she said. "But I do not agree with Mr. Clode, and I am not going to pretend to."