The New Rector

"It is," she answered in a low voice. She did not dare to look up at him.

"And all you have to say to me?"

"Yes. Except that I wish you well. I shall always wish you well, Mr. Clode," she muttered.

"Thank you," he answered coldly.

So coldly, and with so much composure, that she did not guess the gust of hatred of all things and all men which was in his heart. He was beside himself with love, rage, disappointment. For a moment longer he stood gazing at her downcast face. But she did not look up at him; and presently, in a strange silence, he turned and went out of the room.

CHAPTER XXV

HUMBLE PIE

The success of reticence is great. Mr. Bonamy and his nephew, as they went home to tea after their victory, plumed themselves not a little upon the proof of this which they had just given Mr. Clode. They said little, it is true; even to one another, but more than once Mr. Bonamy chuckled in a particularly dry manner, and at the top of the street Jack made an observation "You think the archdeacon was satisfied?" he asked, turning to his companion for a moment.

"Absolutely," quoth Mr. Bonamy; and he strode on with one hand in his pocket, his coat-tails flying, and his money jingling in a manner inimitable by any other Claversham person.

At tea they were both silent upon the subject, but the lawyer presently let drop the fact that the earl had accepted the rector's resignation. Jack, watchfully jealous, poor fellow, yet in his jealousy loyal to the core, glanced involuntarily at Kate to see what effect the news produced upon her; and then glanced swiftly away again. Not so swiftly, however, that the change in the girl's face escaped him. He saw it flush with mingled pride and alarm, and then grow grave and thoughtful. After that she kept her eyes averted from him, and he talked busily to Daintry. "I must be leaving you to-morrow," he said by-and-by, as they rose from the table.

"You will be coming back again?" Mr. Bonamy answered, interrupting a loud wail from Daintry. It should be explained that Jack had not stayed through the whole of these weeks at Claversham, but had twice left for some days on circuit business. Mr. Bonamy thought he was meditating another of these disappearances.

"I should like to do so," Jack answered quietly, "but I must get back to London now."

"Well, your room will be ready for you whenever you like to come to us," Mr. Bonamy replied with crabbed graciousness. And he fully meant what he said. He had grown used to Jack's company. He saw, too, the change his presence had made in the girls' lives, and possibly he entertained some thoughts of a greater change which the cousin might make in the life of one of them.

So he was sorry to lose Jack. But Daintry was inconsolable. When she and Kate were alone together she made her moan, sitting in a great chair three sizes too big for her, with her legs sprawling before her, her hands on the chair-arms, and her eyes on the fire. "Oh, dear, what shall we do when he is gone, Kate?" she said disconsolately. "Won't it be miserable?"

Kate, who was bending over her work, and had been unusually silent for some time, looked up with a start and a rush of color to her cheeks. "When who is gone-oh, you mean Jack!" she said rather incoherently.

"Of course I do," Daintry answered crossly. "But you never did care for Jack."

"You have no right to say that," Kate answered quickly, letting her work drop for the moment. "I think Jack is one of the noblest, the most generous-yes," she continued quickly, "the bravest man I have ever known, Daintry."

Her voice trembled, and Daintry saw with surprise that her eyes were full of tears. "I never thought you felt like that about him," the younger girl answered penitently.

"Perhaps I did not a little while back," Kate answered gently, as she took up her work again. "I know him better now, that is all."

It was quite true. She knew him better now. A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind. Love, which blinds our eyes to some things, opens them to others. Had Jack offered Kate "Their Wedding Journey" now she might still have asked him to change the book for another, but assuredly she would not have told him it sounded silly, nor hurt his feelings by so much as a look.

It was quite true that she thought him all she said, that her eyes grew moist for his sake. But his was the minute only; the hour was another's. Daintry, proceeding to speculate gloomily on the dulness of Claversham without Jack, thought her sister was attending to her, whereas Kate's thoughts were far away now, centred on a fair head and a bright boyish face, and a solitary room in which she pictured Reginald Lindo sitting alone and despondent, the short-lived brilliance of his Claversham career already extinguished. What were his thoughts, she wondered. Was he regretting-for the strongest have their hours of weakness-the step he had taken? Was he blaming her for the advice she had given? Was he giving a thought to her at all, or only planning the new life on which he must now enter-forming the new hopes which must henceforth cheer him on?

Kate let her work drop and looked dreamily before her. Assuredly the prospect was a dull and uninviting one. Before his coming there had always been the unknown something, which a girl's future holds-a possibility of change, of living a happier, fuller life. But now she had nothing of this kind before her. He had come and robbed her even of this, and given her in return only regret and humiliation, and a few-a very few-hours of strange pleasure and sunshine and womanly pride in a woman's influence nobly used. Yet would she have had it otherwise? No, not for all the unknown possibilities of change, not though Claversham life should stretch its dulness unbroken through a century.

She was sitting alone in the dining-room next morning, Mr. Bonamy being at the office, and Daintry out shopping, when the maid came in and announced that Mr. Lindo was at the door and wished to see her. "Are you sure that he did not ask for Mr. Bonamy?" Kate said, rising and laying down her work with outward composure and secret agitation.

"No; he asked particularly for you, miss," the servant answered, standing with her hand on the door.

"Very well; you can show him in here," Kate replied, casting an eye round her, but disdaining to remove the signs of domestic employment which met its scrutiny. "He has come to say good-by," she thought to herself; and she schooled herself to play her part fitly and close the little drama with decency and reserve.

He came in looking very thoughtful. She need not have feared for her father's papers, her sister's dog's-eared Ollendorf, or her own sewing. He did not so much as glance at them. She thought she saw business in his eye, and she said as he advanced, "Did you wish to see me or my father, Mr. Lindo?"

"You, Miss Bonamy," he answered, shaking hands with her. "You have heard the news, I suppose?"

"Yes," she replied soberly. "I am so very sorry. I fear-I mean I regret now, that when you-"

"Asked for advice" – he continued, helping her out with a grave smile. He had taken the great leather-covered easy-chair on the other side of the fireplace, and was sitting forward in it, toying with his hat.

"Yes," she said, coloring-"if you like to put it in that very flattering form-I regret now that I presumed to give it, Mr. Lindo."

"I am sorry for that," he answered, looking up at her as he spoke.

She felt herself coloring anew. "Why?" she asked rather tremulously.

"Because I have come to ask your advice again. You will not refuse to give it me?"

She looked at him in surprise; with a little annoyance even. It was absurd. Why should he come to her in this way? Why, because on one occasion, when circumstances had impelled him to speak and her to answer, she had presumed to advise-why should he again come to her of set purpose? It was ridiculous of him. "I think I must refuse," she said gravely and a little formally. "I know nothing of business."

"It is not upon a matter of business," he answered.

She uttered a sigh of impatience. "I think you are very foolish, Mr. Lindo. Why do you not go to my father?"

"Well, because it is-because it is on a rather delicate matter," he answered impulsively.

"Still I do not see why you should bring it to me," she objected, with a flash in her gray eyes, and many memories in her mind.

"Well, I will tell you why I bring it to you," he answered bluntly. "Because I acted on your advice the other day; and that, you see, Miss Bonamy, has put me in this fix; and-and, in fact, made other advice necessary, don't you see?"

"I see you are inclined to be somewhat ungenerous," she answered. "But if it must be so, pray go on."

He rose slowly and stood leaning against the mantel-shelf in his favorite attitude, his foot on the fender. "I will be as short as I can," he said, a nervousness she did not fail to note in his manner. "Perhaps you will kindly hear me to the end before you solve my problem for me. It will help me a little, I think, if I may put my case in the third person. Miss Bonamy" – he paused on the name and cleared his throat, and then went on more quickly-"a man I know, young and keen, and at the time successful-successful beyond his hopes, so that others of his age and standing looked on him with envy, came one day to know a girl, and, from the moment of knowing her, to admire and esteem her. She was not only very beautiful, but he thought he saw in her, almost from the first hour of their acquaintance, such noble and generous qualities as all men, even the weakest, would fain imagine in the woman they love."

Kate moved suddenly in her chair as if to rise. Then she sat back again, and he went on.

"This was a weak man," he said in a low voice. "He had had small experience; let that be some excuse for him. He entered at this time on a new field of work in which he found himself of importance and fancied himself of greater importance. There he had frequent opportunities of meeting the woman I have mentioned, who had already made an impression on him. But his head was turned. He discovered that for certain small and unworthy reasons her goodness and her fairness were not recognized by those among whom he mixed, and he had the meanness to swim with the current and to strive to think no more of the woman to whom his heart had gone out. He acted like a cur, in fact, and presently he had his reward. Evil times came upon him. The position he loved was threatened. Finally he lost it, and found himself again where he had started in life-a poor curate without influence or brilliant prospects. Then-it seems an ignoble, a mean, and a miserable thing to say-he found out for certain that he loved this woman, and could imagine no greater honor or happiness than to have her for his wife."

He paused a moment, and stole a glance at her. Kate sat motionless and still, her lips compressed and her eyes hidden by their long lashes, her gaze fixed apparently on the fire. Save that her face was slightly flushed, and that she breathed quickly, he might have fancied that she did not understand, or even that she had not heard. When he spoke again, after waiting anxiously and vainly for any sign, his voice was husky and agitated. "Will you tell me, Miss Bonamy, what he should do?" he said. "Should he ask her to forgive him and to trust him, or should he go away and be silent?"

She did not speak.

"Kate, will you not tell me? Can I not hope to be forgiven?" He was stooping beside her now, and his hand almost touched her hair.

Then, at last, she looked up at him. "Will not my advice come a little late?" she whispered tremulously and yet with a smile-a smile which was at once bright and tearful and eloquent beyond words.

Afterward she thought of a dozen things she should have said to him-about his certainty of himself, about her father; but at the time none of these occurred to her. If he had come to her with his hands full, it would certainly have been otherwise. But she saw him poor through his own act, and her pride left her. When he took her in his arms and kissed her, she said not a word. And he said only, "My darling!"

* * * * *

The rich can afford to be niggardly. Lindo did not stay long, the question he had to put once answered, his claim to happiness once allowed. When Mr. Bonamy came in half an hour later, he found Kate alone. There was an austere elation in his eye which for a moment led her to think that he had heard her news. His first words, however, dispelled the idea. "I have just seen Lord Dynmore," he said, taking his coat-skirts on his arms and speaking with a geniality which showed that he was moved out of his every-day self. "He has-he has considerably surprised me."