“No, sir, nothing but justice,” said Elsworthy, hoarsely, as he backed out of the room. Notwithstanding this statement, it was with very unsatisfactory sensations that Mr. Morgan went upstairs. He felt somehow as if the justice which Elsworthy demanded, and which he himself had solemnly declared to be pursuing the Curate of St. Roque’s, was wonderfully like revenge. “All punishment must be more or less vindictive,” he said to himself as he went upstairs; but that fact did not make him more comfortable as he went into his wife’s drawing-room, where he felt more like a conspirator and assassin than an English Rector in broad daylight, without a mystery near him, had any right to feel. This sensation confused Mr. Morgan much, and made him more peremptory in his manner than ever. As for Mr. Proctor, who was only a spectator, and felt himself on a certain critical eminence, the suggestion that occurred to his mind was, that he had come in at the end of a quarrel, and that the conjugal firmament was still in a state of disturbance: which idea acted upon some private projects in the hidden mind of the Fellow of All Souls, and produced a state of feeling little more satisfactory than that of the Rector of Carlingford.
“I hope Mr. Proctor is going to stay with us for a day or two,” said Mrs. Morgan. “I was just saying it must look like coming home to come to the house he used to live in, and which was even furnished to his own taste,” said the Rector’s wife, shooting a little arrow at the late Rector, of which that good man was serenely unconscious. All this time, while they had been talking, Mrs. Morgan had scarcely been able to keep from asking who could possibly have suggested such a carpet. Mr. Proctor’s chair was placed on the top of one of the big bouquets, which expanded its large foliage round him with more than Eastern prodigality—but he was so little conscious of any culpability of his own in the matter, that he had referred his indignant hostess to one of the leaves as an illustration of the kind of diaper introduced into the new window which had lately been put up in the chapel of All Souls. “A naturalistic treatment, you know,” said Mr. Proctor, with the utmost serenity; “and some people objected to it,” added the unsuspicious man.
“I should have objected very strongly,” said Mrs. Morgan, with a little flush. “If you call that naturalistic treatment, I consider it perfectly out of place in decoration—of every kind—” Mr. Proctor happened to be looking at her at the moment, and it suddenly occurred to him that Miss Wodehouse never got red in that uncomfortable way, which was the only conclusion he drew from the circumstance, having long ago forgotten that any connection had ever existed between himself and the carpet on the drawing-room in Carlingford Rectory. He addressed his next observation to Mr. Morgan, who had just come in.
“I saw Mr. Wodehouse’s death in the Times,” said Mr. Proctor, “and I thought the poor young ladies might feel—at least they might think it a respect—or, at all events, it would be a satisfaction to one’s self,” said the late Rector, who had got into a mire of explanation. “Though he was far from being a young man, yet having a young daughter like Miss Lucy—”
“Poor Lucy!” said Mr. Morgan. “I hope that wretched fellow, young Wentworth”—and here the Rector came to a dead stop, and felt that he had brought the subject most to be avoided head and shoulders into the conversation, as was natural to an embarrassed man. The consequence was that he got angry, as might have been expected. “My dear, you must not look at me as you do. I have just been hearing all the evidence. No unbiased mind could possibly come to any other decision,” said Mr. Morgan, with exasperation. Now that he had committed himself, he thought it was much the best thing to go in for it wholly, without half measures, which was certainly the most straightforward way.
“What has happened to Wentworth?” said Mr. Proctor. “He is a young man for whom I have a great regard. Though he is so much younger than I am, he taught me some lessons while I was in Carlingford which I shall never forget. If he is in any trouble that I can help him in, I shall be very glad to do it, both for his sake and for—” Mr. Proctor slurred over the end of his sentence a little, and the others were occupied with their own difficulties, and did not take very much notice—for it was difficult to state fully the nature and extent of Mr. Wentworth’s enormities after such a declaration of friendship. “I met him on my way here,” said the Fellow of All Souls, “not looking quite as he used to do. I supposed it might be Mr. Wodehouse’s death, perhaps.” All Mr. Proctor’s thoughts ran in that channel of Mr. Wodehouse’s death, which, after all, though sad enough, was not so great an event to the community in general as the late Rector seemed to suppose.
It was Mrs. Morgan at length who took heart to explain to Mr. Proctor the real state of affairs. “He has been a very good clergyman for five years,” said Mrs. Morgan; “he might behave foolishly, you know, about Wharfside, but then that was not his fault so much as the fault of the Rector’s predecessors. I am sure I beg your pardon, Mr. Proctor—I did not mean that you were to blame,” said the Rector’s wife; “but, notwithstanding all the work he has done, and the consistent life he has led, there is nobody in Carlingford who is not quite ready to believe that he has run away with Rosa Elsworthy—a common little girl without any education, or a single idea
