“Yes,” said the Curate. The emergency was momentous, and he dared not lose patience. He found her large pin even, while she stood trembling, and stuck it into her shawl as if it had been a skewer. “You never would have come if you had not been my guardian angel,” said the deceitful young man, whose heart was beating high with anxiety and hope. “Nobody else would do for me what you are going to do—but I have always had confidence in my aunt Dora. Come, come! We have not a moment to lose.”
This was how he overcame Miss Dora’s scruples. Before she knew what had happened she was being hurried through the clear summer night past the long garden-walls of Grange Lane. The stars were shining overhead, the leaves rustling on all sides in the soft wind—not a soul to be seen in the long line of darkling road. Miss Dora had no breath to speak, however much disposed she might have been. She could not remonstrate, having full occasion for all her forces to keep her feet and her breath. When Mr. Wentworth paused for an instant to ask “which way did she go?” it was all Miss Dora could do to indicate with her finger the dark depths of Prickett’s Lane. Thither she was immediately carried as by a whirlwind. With a shawl over her head, fastened together wildly by the big pin—with nothing but little satin slippers, quite unfit for the exertion required of them—with an agonised protest in her heart that she had never, never in her life gone after any improper person before—and, crowning misfortune of all, with a horrible consciousness that she had left the garden-door open, hoping to return in a few minutes, Miss Dora Wentworth, single woman as she was, and ignorant of evil, was whirled off in pursuit of the unfortunate Rosa into the dark abysses of Prickett’s Lane.
While this terrible Hegira was taking place, Mr. Proctor sat opposite Gerald Wentworth, sipping his claret and talking of Italy. “Perhaps you have not read Burgon’s book,” said the late Rector. “There is a good deal of valuable information in it about the Catacombs, and he enters at some length into the question between the Roman Church and our own. If you are interested in that, you should read it,” said Mr. Proctor; “it is a very important question.”
“Yes,” said Gerald; and then there followed a pause. Mr. Proctor did not know what to make of the faint passing smile, the abstracted look, which he had vaguely observed all the evening; and he looked so inquiringly across the table that Gerald’s newborn dualism came immediately into play, to the great amazement of his companion. Mr. Wentworth talked, and talked well; but his eyes were still abstracted, his mind was still otherwise occupied; and Mr. Proctor, whose own intelligence was in a state of unusual excitement, perceived the fact without being at all able to explain it. An hour passed, and both the gentlemen looked at their watches. The Curate had left them abruptly enough, with little apology; and as neither of them had much interest in the other, nor in the conversation, it was natural that the host’s return should be looked for with some anxiety. When the two gentlemen had said all they could say about Italy—when Mr. Proctor had given a little sketch of his own experiences in Rome, to which his companion did not make the usual response of narrating his—the two came to a dead pause. They had now been sitting for more than two hours over that bottle of Lafitte, many thoughts having in the meantime crossed Mr. Proctor’s mind concerning the coffee and the Curate. Where could he have gone? and why was there not somebody in the house with sense enough to clear away the remains of dessert, and refresh the wearied interlocutors with the black and fragrant cup which cheers all students? Both of the gentlemen had become seriously uneasy by this time; the late Rector got up from the table when he could bear it no longer. “Your brother must have been called away by something important,” said Mr. Proctor, stiffly. “Perhaps you will kindly make my excuses. Mr. Morgan keeps very regular hours, and I should not like to be late—”
“It is very extraordinary. I can’t fancy what can be the reason—it must be somebody sick,” said Gerald, rising too, but not looking by any means sure that Frank’s absence had such a laudable excuse.
“Very likely,” said the late Rector, more stiffly than ever. “You are living here, I suppose?”
“No; I am at Miss Wentworth’s—my aunt’s,” said Gerald. “I will walk with you;” and they went out together with minds considerably excited. Both looked up and down the road when they got outside the garden-gate: both had a vague idea that the Curate might be visible somewhere in conversation with somebody disreputable; and one being his friend and the other his brother, they were almost equally disturbed about the unfortunate young man. Mr. Proctor’s thoughts, however, were mingled with a little offence. He had meant to be confidential and brotherly, and the occasion had been lost; and how was it possible to explain the rudeness with which Mr. Wentworth had treated him? Gerald was still more seriously troubled. When Mr. Proctor left him, he walked up and down Grange Lane in the quiet of the summer night, watching for his brother. Jack came home smoking his cigar, dropping Wodehouse, whom the heir of the Wentworths declined to call his friend, before he reached his aunts’ door, and as much surprised as it was possible for him to be, to find Gerald lingering, meditating, along the
