I have heard that the bitterest pang a boy feels on returning to school after his first holidays is reserved for the moment when he opens his desk and recalls the happy hour, full of joyous antic.i.p.ation, when he had closed that desk with a bang. Oh, the pity of it! The change from that boy to this, from that morning to this evening! How meanly, how inadequately--so it seems to the urchin standing with smudged cheeks before the well-remembered grammar--did the lad who turned the key estimate his real happiness! How little did he enter into it or deserve it!

Just such a pang shot through the young rector's heart as he pa.s.sed into the rectory porch after that momentous scene at Mrs. Hammond's. His rage had had time to die down. With reflection had come a full sense of his position. As he entered the house he remembered--remembered only too well, grinding his teeth over the recollection--how secure, how free from embarra.s.sments, how happy had been his situation when he last issued from that door a few, a very few, hours before. Such troubles as had then annoyed him seemed trifles light as air now. Mr. Bonamy's writ, the dislike of one section in the parish--how could he have let such things as these make him miserable for a moment?

How, indeed? Or, if there were anything grave in his situation then, what was it now? He had held his head high; henceforward he would be a by-word in the parish, a man under a cloud. The position in which he had placed himself would still be his, perhaps, but only because he would cling to it to the last. Under no circ.u.mstances could it any longer be a source of pride to him. He had posed, will he, nill he, as the earl's friend; he must submit in the future to be laughed at by the Greggs and avoided by the Homfrays. It seemed to him indeed that his future in Claversham could be only one long series of humiliations. He was a proud man, and as he thought of this he sprang from his chair and strode up and down the room, his cheeks flaming. Had there ever been such a fall before!

Mrs. Baker, as yet ignorant of it all, though the news was by this time spreading through the town, brought him his dinner, and he ate something in the dining-room. Then he went back to the study and sat idle and listless before his writing-table. There was a number of "Punch" lying on it, and he took this up and read it through drearily, extracting a faint pleasure from its witticisms, but never for an instant forgetting the cloud of trouble brooding over him. Years afterward he could recall some of the jokes in that "Punch"--with a shudder. Presently he laid it down and began to think. And then, before his thoughts became quite insufferable, they were interrupted by the sound of a voice in the hall.

He rose and stood with his back to the fire, and as he waited, his eyes on the door, his face grew hot, his brow defiant. He had little doubt that the visitor was Clode. He had expected the curate before, and even antic.i.p.ated the relief of pouring his thoughts into a friendly ear. None the less, now the thing had come, he dreaded the first moment of meeting, scarcely knowing how to bear himself in these changed circ.u.mstances.

It was not Clode, however, who entered, but Jack Smith. The rector started, and, uncertain whether the barrister had heard of the blow which had fallen on him or no, stepped forward awkwardly, and held out his hand in a constrained fashion. Jack, on his side, had his own reasons for being ill at ease with his friend. But the moment the men's hands met they somehow closed on one another in the old hearty fashion, and the grip told the rector that the other knew all. "You have heard?" he muttered.

"Mr. Bonamy told me," the barrister answered. "I came across almost at once."

"You do not believe that I was aware of the earl's mistake, then?" Lindo said, with a faint smile.

"I should as soon believe that I knew of it myself!" Jack replied warmly. He was glad beyond measure now that he had come. As he and Lindo stood half facing one another, each with an elbow on the mantel-shelf, he felt that he could defy the chill at his own heart--that, notwithstanding all, his old friend was still dear to him. Perhaps if the rector had been prospering as before, if no cloud had arisen in his sky, it might have been different. But as it was, Jack's generous heart went out to him. "Tell me what happened, old fellow," he said cheerily--"that is, if you have no objection to taking me into your confidence."

"I shall be only too glad of your help," Lindo answered thankfully, feeling indeed--so potent is a single word of sympathy--happier already. "I would ask you to sit down, Jack," he continued, in a tone of rather sheepish raillery, "and have a cup of coffee or some whiskey, but I do not know whether I ought to do so, now that Lord Dynmore says the things are not mine."

"I will take the responsibility," Jack answered, briskly ringing the bell. "Was my lord very rude?"

"Confoundedly!" the rector answered, and proceeded to tell his story. Jack was surprised to find him at first more placable than he had expected, but presently he learned that this moderation was only a.s.sumed. The rector rose as he went on, and began to pace the room, and, the motion freeing his tongue, he gradually betrayed the indignation and resentment which he really felt. Jack asked him, with a view to clearing the ground, whether he had quite made up his mind not to resign, and was astonished by the force and anger with which he repudiated the thought of doing so. "Resign? No never!" he cried, standing still, and almost glaring at his companion. "Why should I? What have I done? Was it my mistake, that I am to suffer for it? Was it my fault, that for penalty I am to have the tenor of my life broken? Do you think I can go back to the Docks the same man I left them? I cannot. Nor is that all, or nearly all," he added still more warmly--"I have been called a swindler and an impostor. Am I by resigning to plead guilty to the charge?"

"No!" said Jack, himself catching fire, "certainly not! I did not intend for a moment to advise that course. I think you would be acting very foolishly if you resigned under these circ.u.mstances."

"I am glad of that," the rector said, sitting down with a sigh of relief. "I feared you did not quite enter into my feelings."

"I do thoroughly," the barrister answered, with feeling, "but I want to do more--I want to help you. You must not go into this business blindly, old man. And, first, I think you ought to take the archdeacon or some other clergyman into your confidence. Show him the whole of your case, I mean, and----"

"And act upon his advice?" said the young rector, rebellion already flashing in his eye.

"No, not necessarily," the barrister answered, skilfully adapting his tone to the irritability of his patient. "Of course your bona fides at the time you accepted the living is the point of importance to you, Lindo. You did not see their solicitors--the earl's people, I mean--did you?"

"No," the rector answered somewhat sullenly.

"Then their letter conveyed to you all you knew of the living and the offer?"

"Precisely."

"Let us see them, then," replied Jack, rising briskly from his chair. He had already determined to say nothing of the witness whom Mr. Bonamy had mentioned to him as a.s.serting that the rector had bribed him. He knew enough of his friend to utterly disbelieve the story, and he considered it as told to him in confidence. "There is no time like the present," he continued. "You have kept the letters, of course?"

"They are here," Lindo answered, rising also, and unlocking as he spoke the little cupboard among the books; "I made them into a packet and indorsed them soon after I came. They have been here ever since."

He found them after a moment's search and without himself examining them, pitched them to Jack, who had returned to his seat. The barrister untied the string and glancing quickly at the dates of the letters, arranged them in order and flattened them out on his knee. "Now," he said, "number one! That I think I have seen before." He mumbled over the opening sentences, and turned the page. "Hallo!" he exclaimed, holding the letter from him, and speaking in a tone of surprise--almost of consternation--"how is this?"

"What?" said the rector.

"You have destroyed the latter part of this letter! Why on earth did you do that?"

"I never did," Lindo answered incredulously. Obeying Jack's gesture he came, and, standing by his chair, looked over his shoulder. Then he saw that part of the latter half of the sheet had been torn off. The signature and the last few words of the letter, were gone. He looked and wondered. "I never did it," he said positively, "whoever did. You may be sure of that."

"You are certain?"

"Absolutely certain," the rector answered with considerable warmth. "I remember arranging and indorsing the packet. I am quite sure that this letter was intact then, for I read over every one. That was a few evenings after I came here."

"Have you ever shown the letters to any one?" Jack asked suspiciously.

"Never," said the rector; "they have never been removed from this cupboard, to my knowledge, since I put them there."

"Think! I want you to be quite sure," Jack rejoined, pressing his point steadily; "you see this letter is rendered utterly worthless by the mutilation. Indeed, to produce it would be to raise a natural suspicion that the last sentence of the letter was not in our favor, and we had got rid of it. Of course the chances are that the earl's solicitors have copies, but for the present that is not our business."

"Well," said the rector somewhat absently--he had been rather thinking than listening--"I do remember now a circ.u.mstance which may account for this. A short time after I came a man broke into the house and ransacked this cupboard. Possibly he did it."

"A burglar, do you mean? Was he caught?" the barrister asked, figuratively p.r.i.c.king up his ears.

"No--or, rather, I should say yes," the rector answered. And then he explained that his curate, taking the man red-handed, had let him go, in the hope that, as it was his first offence, he would take warning and live honestly.

"But who was the burglar?" Jack inquired. "You know, I suppose? Is he in the town now?"

"Clode never told me his name," Lindo answered. "The man made a point of that, and I did not press for it. I remember that Clode was somewhat ashamed of his clemency."

"He had need to be," Jack snorted. "It sounds an extraordinary story. All the same, Lindo, I am not sure it has any connection with this." He held the letter up before him as though drawing inspiration from it. "This letter, you see," he went on presently, "being the first in date would be inside the packet. Why should a man who wanted perhaps a bit of paper for a spill or a pipe-light unfasten this packet and take the innermost letter? I do not believe it."

"But no one else save myself," Lindo urged, "has had access to the letter. And there it is torn."

"Yes, here it is torn," Jack admitted, gazing thoughtfully at it; "that is true."

For a few moments the two sat silent, Jack fingering the letter, Lindo with his eyes fixed gloomily on the fire. Suddenly the rector broke out without warning or preface. "What a fool I have been!" he exclaimed, his tone one of abrupt overwhelming conviction. "Good heavens, what a fool I have been!"

His friend looked at him in surprise, and saw that his face was crimson. "Is it about the letter?" he asked, leaning forward, his tone sharp with professional impatience. "You do not mean to say, Lindo, that you really----"

"No, no!" replied the young clergyman, ruthlessly interrupting him. "It has nothing to do with the letter."

He said no more, and Jack waited for further light, but none came, and the barrister reapplied his thoughts to the problem before him. He had only just hit upon a new idea, however, when he was again diverted by an interruption from Lindo. "Jack," said the latter impressively, "I want you to give a message for me."

"Not a cartel to Lord Dynmore, I hope?" the barrister muttered.

"No," Lindo answered, getting up and poking the fire unnecessarily--what a quant.i.ty of embarra.s.sment has been liberated before now by means of pokers--"no, I want you to give a message to your cousin---Miss Bonamy, I mean." The rector paused, the poker still in his hand, and stole a sharp glance at his companion; but, rea.s.sured by the discovery that he was to all appearance buried in the letter, he continued: "Would you mind telling her that I am sorry I misjudged her a short time back--she will understand--and behaved, I feel, very ungratefully to her? She warned me that there was a rumor afloat that something was amiss with my t.i.tle, and I am afraid' I was very rude to her. I should like you to tell her, if you will, that I--that I am particularly ashamed of myself," he added, with a gulp.

He did not find the words easy of utterance--far from it; but the effort they cost him was slight and trivial compared with that which poor Jack found himself called upon to make. For a moment, indeed, he was silent, his heart rebelling against the task a.s.signed to him. To carry his message to her! Then his n.o.bler self answered to the call, and he spoke. His words, "Yes, I'll tell her," came, it is true, a little late, in a voice a trifle thick, and were uttered with a coldness which Lindo would have remarked had he not been agitated himself. But they came--at a price. The Victoria Cross for moral courage can seldom be gained by a single act of valor. Many a one has failed to gain it who had strength enough for the first blow. "Yes, I will tell her," Jack repeated a few seconds later, folding up the letter and laying it on the table, but so contriving that his face was hidden from his friend. "To-morrow will do, I suppose?" he added, the faintest tinge of irony in his tone. He may be pardoned if he thought the apology he was asked to carry came a little late.

"Oh, yes, to-morrow will do," Lindo answered with a start; he had fallen into a reverie, but now roused himself. "I am afraid you are very tired, old fellow," he continued, looking gratefully at his friend. "A friend in need is a friend indeed, you know. I cannot tell you"--with a sigh--"how very good I think it was of you to come to me."

"Nonsense!" Jack said briskly. "It was all in the day's work. As it is, I have done nothing. And that reminds me," he continued, facing his companion with a smile--"what of the trouble between my uncle and you? About the sheep, I mean. You have put it in some lawyer's hands, have you not?"

"Yes," Lindo answered reluctantly.

"Quite right, too," said the barrister. "Who are they?"

"Turner & Grey, of Birmingham."

"Well, I will write," Jack answered, "if you will let me, and tell them to let the matter stand for the present. I think that will be the best course. Bonamy won't object."

"But he has issued a writ," the rector explained. A writ seemed to him a formidable engine. As well dally before the mouth of a cannon.

But Jack knew better. The law's delays were familiar to him. He was aware of many a pleasant little halting-place between writ and judgment. "Never mind about that," he answered, with a confident laugh. "Shall I settle it for you? I shall know better, perhaps, what to say to them."

The rector a.s.sented gladly; adding: "Here is their address." It was stuck in the corner of a picture hanging over the fireplace. He took it down as he spoke and gave it to Jack, who put it carelessly into his pocket, and, seizing his hat, said he must go at once--that it was close on twelve. The rector would have repeated his thanks; but Jack would not stop to hear them, and in a moment was gone.

Reginald Lindo returned to the study after letting him out, and, dropping into the nearest chair, looked round with a sigh. Yet, the sigh notwithstanding, he was a hundredfold less unhappy now than he had been at dinner or while looking over that number of "Punch." His friend's visit had both cheered and softened him. His thoughts no, longer dwelt on the earl's injustice, the desertion of his friends, or the humiliations in store for him; but went back again to the warning Kate Bonamy had given him. Thence it was not unnatural that they should revert to the beginning of his acquaintance with her. He pictured her at Oxford, he saw her scolding Daintry in the stiff drawing-room, or coming to meet him in the Red Lane; and, the veil of local prejudice torn from his eyes by the events of the day, he began to discern that this girl, with all the drawbacks of her surroundings, was the fairest, bravest, and n.o.blest girl he had met at Claversham, or, for aught he could remember, elsewhere. His eyes glistened. He was sure--so sure that he would have staked his life on the result--that for all the earls in England Kate Bonamy would not have deserted him!

He had reached this point, and Jack had been gone some five minutes or more, when he was startled by a loud rap at the house door. He stood up and, wondering who it could be at this hour, took a candle and went into the hall. Setting the candlestick on a table, he opened the door, and there, to his astonishment, was Jack come back again!

"Capital!" said the barrister, slipping in and shutting the door behind him, as though his return were not in the least degree extraordinary, "I thought it was you. Look here; there is one thing I forget to ask you, Lindo. Where did you get the address of those lawyers?"

He asked the question so earnestly, and his face, now it could be seen by the strong light of the candle at his elbow, wore so curious an expression, that the rector was for a moment quite taken aback. "They are good people, are they not?" he said, wondering much.

"Oh, yes, the firm is good enough," Jack answered impatiently. "But who gave you their address?"

"Clode," the rector answered. "I went round to his lodgings and he wrote it down for me."

"At his lodgings?" cried the barrister.

"To be sure."

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

"Never!"

"Never let them go out of the house?"

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

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

CHAPTER XIX.

THE DAY AFTER.

Oddly enough, the rector's first thought on rising next morning was of his curate. He had expected, as we have seen, that Clode would call before bedtime. Disappointed in this, he still felt so certain that the curate would hasten as soon as possible to offer his sympathy and a.s.sistance 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 h.o.a.r-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 a.s.surance. 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?"