the pale of humanity?
‘Here is half an umbrella. Won’t you hold it for me?’ she said; and as he followed his instinct of obedience, she put it into his hand, and took his arm, thinking that this familiarity would best restore him to a sense of his regained position; and, moreover, feeling glad and triumphant to be thus leaning, and to have that strong arm to contend with the driving blast that came howling round the corner of Minster Street, and fighting for their shelter. They were both out of breath when they paused to recover in the deep porch of the Minster.
‘Is Dr. May come home?’
‘Yes—and—’
Ethel signed, and Mr. Wilmot held out an earnest hand, with, ‘This is well. I am glad to see you.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Leonard, heartily; ‘and for all—’
‘This is your new beginning of life, Leonard. God bless you in it.’
As Mr. Wilmot passed on, Ethel for the first time ventured to look up into the eyes—and saw their hollow setting, their loss of sparkle, but their added steadfastness and resolution. She could not help repeating the long- treasured lines: ‘And, Leonard,
“—grieve not for thy woes, Disgrace and trouble; For He who honour best bestows, Shall give thee double.”’
‘I’ve never ceased to be glad you read Marmion with me,’ he hastily said, as they turned into church on hearing a clattering of choristers behind them.
Clara might have had such sensations when she bound the spurs on her knight’s heels, yet even she could hardly have had so pure, unselfish, and exquisite a joy as Ethel’s, in receiving the pupil who had been in a far different school from hers.
The gray dawn through the gloom, the depths of shadow in the twilight church, softening and rendering all more solemn and mysterious, were more in accordance than bright and beamy sunshine with her subdued grave thankfulness; and there was something suitable in the fewness of the congregation that had gathered in the Lady Chapel—so few, that there was no room for shyness, either in, or for, him who was again taking his place there, with steady composed demeanour, its stillness concealing so much.
Ethel had reckoned on the verse—’That He might hear the mournings of such as are in captivity, and deliver the children appointed unto death.’ But she had not reckoned on its falling on her ears in the deep full-toned melodious bass, that came in, giving body to the young notes of the choristers—a voice so altered and mellowed since she last had heard it, that it made her look across in doubt, and recognize in the uplifted face, that here indeed the freed captive was at home, and lifted above himself.
When the clause, in the Litany, for all prisoners and captives brought to her the thrill that she had only to look up to see the fulfilment of many and many a prayer for one captive, for once she did not hear the response, only saw the bent head, as though there were thoughts went too deep to find voice. And again, there was the special thanksgiving that Mr. Wilmot could not refrain from introducing for one to whom a great mercy had been vouchsafed. If Ethel had had to swim home, she would not but have been there!
Charles Cheviot addressed them as they came out of church: ‘Good morning—Mr. Ward, I hope to do myself the honour of calling on you—I shall see you again, Ethel.
And off he went over the glazy stones to his own house, Ethel knowing that this cordial salutation and intended call were meant to be honourable amends for his suspicions; but Leonard, unconscious of the import, and scarcely knowing indeed that he was addressed, made his mechanical gesture of respect, and looked up, down, and round, absorbed in the scene. ‘How exactly the same it all looks,’ he said; ‘the cloister gate, and the Swan, and the postman in the very same waterproof cape.’
‘Do you not feel like being just awake?’
‘No; it is more like being a ghost, or somebody else.’
Then the wind drove them on too fast for speech, till as they crossed the High Street, Ethel pointed through the plane-trees to two round black eyes, and a shining black nose, at the dining-room window.
‘My Mab, my poor little Mab!—You have kept her all this time! I was afraid to ask for her. I could not hope it.’
‘I could not get my spoilt child, Gertrude, to bed without taking Mab, that she might see the meeting.’
Perhaps it served Daisy right that the meeting did not answer her expectations. Mab and her master had both grown older; she smelt round him long before she was sure of him, and then their content in one another was less shown by fervent rapture, than by the quiet hand smoothing her silken coat; and, in return, by her wistful eye, nestling gesture, gently waving tail.
And Leonard! How was it with him? It was not easy to tell in his absolute passiveness. He seemed to have neither will nor impulse to speak, move, or act, though whatever was desired of him, he did with the implicit obedience that no one could bear to see. They put books near him, but he did not voluntarily touch one: they asked if he would write to his sister, and he took the pen in his hand, but did not accomplish a commencement. Ethel asked him if he were tired, or had a headache.
‘Thank you, no,’ he said; ‘I’ll write,’ and made a dip in the ink.
‘I did not mean to tease you,’ she said; ‘the mail is not going just yet, and there is no need for haste. I was only afraid something was wrong.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, submissively; ‘I will—when I can think; but it is all too strange. I have not seen a lady, nor a room like this, since July three years.’
After that Ethel let him alone, satisfied that peace was the best means of recovering the exhaustion of his long-suffering.
The difficulty was that this was no house for quiet, especially the day after the master’s return: the door-bell kept on ringing, and each time he looked startled and nervous, though assured that it was only patients. But at twelve o’clock in rushed Mr. Cheviot’s little brother, with a note from Mary, lamenting that it was too wet for herself, but saying that Charles was coming in the afternoon, and that he intended to have a dinner-party of old Stoneborough scholars to welcome Leonard back.
Meanwhile, Martin Cheviot, wanting to see, and not to stare, and to unite cordiality and unconsciousness, made an awkward mixture of all, and did not know how to get away; and before he had accomplished it, Mr. Edward Anderson was announced. He heartily shook hands with Leonard, eagerly welcomed him, and talked volubly, and his
