of frightful apprehension. To have Susan’s name exposed to such a horrible publicity—to have such a scene, such a crime anyhow connected with his sister—the idea shook Vincent’s mind utterly, and almost disabled him from thought at all. And where was she, poor horror-stricken fugitive? He scarcely dared hope that she had gone to her mother. Sudden death, madness, any misery, seemed possible to have overtaken the unhappy girl thus suddenly reft out of the peacefulness of her youth into circumstances so horrible. When he entered Carlingford, late at night, it was with insupportable pangs of suspense and alarm that he looked into the faces he met on the lighted streets. Were they looking at him already with a consciousness that some frightful shadow enveloped him? Tozer’s shop was already shut—earlier than usual, surely—and two or three people stood talking at the open door, clearly visible against the gaslight, which still burned bright within. Farther up, opposite his own house, two or three passengers had stopped to look up at the lighted windows. When Vincent thrust aside a lad who happened to be in his way, asking, with uncontrollable irritation, what he wanted there, the door opened suddenly at the sound of his voice. All was excited and confused within—common life, with its quiet summonses and answers, was over there. Wild confusion, agitation, reproach, surrounded the unfortunate minister. His landlady came forward to meet him, to bewail her own misfortune, and upbraid him with the wrong he had done her. “I took in the pastor for a lodger, because he was sure to be steady and respectable, and this is what he has brought to me!” cried the hysterical woman. “What is the meaning of all this?” cried Vincent, looking round him with restrained fury, but he did not wait for an answer. He went up to his rooms to know the worst. As he rushed breathless upstairs, loud outcries of delirium reached him. In his horror and anguish he could not recognise the voice—was it his mother who had given way under the terrible burden? He dashed open the door of the sitting-room in which he had spent so many quiet hours—neither mother nor sister were there; instead of them a rough-featured man, in a blue travelling-coat, and Tozer, flushed and argumentative, standing by the table. Vincent had not time to ask what the controversy was that was going on between the two. The butterman grasped his hand with an almost violent pressure, and took the stranger’s arm. “Beg your pardon for being in your room,
Mr. Vincent, but me and this gentleman has a little business. I’ll be back presently and explain,” said the good deacon, with a compassionate look at the young man, whose weary eyes sought with instinctive suspicion that unknown face. “I’m your friend,
Mr. Vincent—I always was; I’m not one as will desert a friend in trouble,” said Tozer, with another shake of his hand, lowering his voice. Then he disappeared with his strange companion. The minister was alone with those cries, with this agitation. He threw himself down in momentary despair. The worst, it appeared, had happened—the horror had travelled before him. He gave up everything in the anguish of that moment. There seemed to be no use for any further struggle. To this sensitive, spotless, inexperienced household, suspicion was worse than death.
XXV
When Vincent came to himself, and began to see clearly the true horrors of his position, his mind, driven to its last stronghold, rallied convulsively to meet the worst. It was Susan who was raving close by; but her brother, in the sickening despair of his heart, had not the courage to go into that agitated sickroom. He sat waiting for Tozer’s return with a sense of helplessness, a sense of irritation, against which he had no strength to contend. In that bitter moment he gave up everything, and felt himself no longer capable of striving against his fate. He felt in his heart that all Carlingford must already be discussing the calamity that had come upon him, and that his innocent honourable name was already sullied by the breath of the crowd; and, with a strange mixture of intolerance and eagerness, he waited the return of the man who had first, as it appeared, thrust himself into the secret—a man whom the minister must not affront, must not defy, on peril of all he had in the world. These few silent moments were more terrible to Vincent than any that had gone before them. Was it any good holding out, attempting to keep a brave face to the world, struggling against this crushing blow?—or would it not be easiest to give in, to drop the useless arms, to fly from the inevitable downfall? Some corner of the earth there surely remained where he could hide his head and find a shelter for the two poor women who were greater sufferers than he. It was with such feelings that he awaited the return of Tozer—feelings aggravated by the consciousness that somehow the butterman was engaged in his service at this very moment, and by a shadowy and unexpressed suspicion in his mind as to the character of the stranger whom Tozer had taken away. The excellent deacon returned at last with looks of conscious importance. He was very sorry and anxious, but he could not help looking confidential, and standing a little higher upon the ground of this mystery, which nobody shared but himself. Once more he shook hands with Vincent, sympathetically, and with a grasp full of meaning.
“The thing for us to do is to keep it quiet—to keep it quiet, sir,” said Tozer, lowering his voice as he spoke. “Nothing must be said about it—no more nor can be helped, Mr. Vincent. As far as it has gone, there’s nobody as has heard but me. If it could be kept private from the Salem folks,” continued the butterman, taking a seat at the
