“Send down my bag to my house,” said the Curate, hastily interrupting him. “Good night—don’t forget what I said about the other matter.” Mr. Wentworth went out of the shop with a disagreeable impression that Elsworthy had been examining his face like an inquisitor, and was already forming conclusions from what he had seen there. He went away hurriedly, with a great many vague fears in his mind. Mr. Wodehouse’s sudden illness seemed to him a kind of repetition and echo of the Squire’s, and in the troubled and uncertain state of his thoughts, he got to confusing them together in the centre of this whirl of unknown disaster and perplexity. Perhaps even thus it was not all bitterness to the young man to feel his family united with that of Lucy Wodehouse. He went down Grange Lane in the summer darkness under the faint stars, full of anxiety and alarm, yet not without a thrill in his heart, a sweeter undercurrent of conscious agitation in the knowledge that he was hastening to her presence. Sudden breaks in his thoughts revealed her, as if behind a curtain, rising to receive him, giving him her hand, meeting his look with a smile; so that, on the whole, neither Gerald’s distress, nor Jack’s alarming call, nor his father’s attack, nor Mr. Wodehouse’s illness, nor the general atmosphere of vexation and trouble surrounding his way, could succeed in making the young man totally wretched. He had this little stronghold of his own to retire into. The world could not fall to pieces so long as he continued with eager steps to devour the road which led to Mr. Wodehouse’s garden-door.
Before he had reached that goal, however, he met a group who were evidently returning from some little dinner in Grange Lane. Mr. Wentworth took off his hat hastily in recognition of Mrs. Morgan, who was walking by her husband’s side, with a bright-coloured hood over her head instead of a bonnet. The Curate, who was a man of taste, could not help observing, even in the darkness, and amid all his preoccupations, how utterly the cherry-coloured trimmings of her headdress were out of accordance with the serious countenance of the Rector’s wife, who was a little heated with her walk. She was a good woman, but she was not fair to look upon; and it occurred to Mr. Wentworth to wonder, if Lucy were to wait ten years for him, would the youthful grace dry and wither out of her like this! And then all at once another idea flashed upon his mind, without any wish of his. Like the unhappy lover in the ballad, he was suddenly aware of a temptation—
“How there looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright,
And how he knew it was a fiend.”
“Of course the Rectory will go to Frank.” He could not tell why at that moment the words rang into his ear with such a penetrating sound. That he hated himself for being able to think of such a possibility made no difference. It came darting and tingling into his mind like one of those suggestions of blasphemy which the devils whispered in Christian’s ear as he went through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He went on faster than ever to escape from it, scarcely observing that Mrs. Morgan, instead of simply acknowledging his bow as she passed, stopped to shake hands, and to say how glad she was he had come back again. He thought of it afterwards with wonder and a strange gratitude. The Rector’s wife was not like the conventional type of a pitying angel; and even had she been so, he had not time to recognise her at that moment as he went struggling with his demons to Mr. Wodehouse’s green door.
XXI
When the green door was opened, Mr. Wentworth saw at a glance that there was agitation and trouble in the house. Lights were twinkling irregularly in the windows here and there, but the family apartment, the cheerful drawing-room, which generally threw its steady, cheerful blaze over the dark garden, shone but faintly with half-extinguished lights and undrawn curtains. It was evident at a glance that the room was deserted, and its usual occupants engaged elsewhere. “Master’s very bad, sir,” said the servant who opened the door; “the young ladies is both with him, and a hired nurse come in besides. The doctor don’t seem to have no great hopes, but it will be a comfort to know as you have come back. Miss Wodehouse wanted you very bad an hour or two ago, for they thought as master was reviving, and could understand. I’ll go and let them know you are here.”
“Don’t disturb them, unless I can be of use,” said Mr. Wentworth. The look of the house, and the atmosphere of distress and anxiety about it, chilled him suddenly. His visions and hopes
