Salem Chapel

a sensation of comfort at his heart, that his story interested the acute attorney, accustomed to the tricks and expedients of crime, who perceived at once the circumstances of suspicion, and understood at once how to go about it, and ferret the secret out. The minister himself grew steadier as he entered into his narrative. No shivers of wonder or pain convulsed the calm lawyer as he listened. Under his touch, Susan’s dreadful position became one not unprecedented, to be dealt with like any other condition of actual life; and when Vincent, after furnishing all the information he could, and satisfying himself that no time was to be lost in the prosecution of the search for the real criminal, left the office to return to Carlingford, it was with a mind somewhat calmed out of its first horror. He went back again by the train, deeply depressed and anxious, but not so susceptible to every glance and word as he had been an hour or two before. He tried, indeed, to take a certain gloomy satisfaction from the idea that now everything was known. Fear of discovery could no longer appal the stricken household; and to meet the horror in the face was less dreadful than to feel themselves skulking under a secret shadow which might at any moment be found out. He set his face sternly, and looked everybody full in the eyes who looked at him, as he once more alighted at the familiar station. He accepted the fact that people were talking of him, pitying him, contemplating him with wonder and fright, as somehow involved in an atmosphere of tragedy and crime. With this feeling he went slowly along George Street on his homeward way, with no susceptibility left in him, so far as he was aware, except as concerned this sudden calamity which had swallowed up his life.

When suddenly the sound of a carriage stopping came dully upon his ears; he would not have noted or heard it but for the sound that followed of someone calling his own name, and the soft rush of footsteps on the pavement; even then he did not turn round to see who called him. It was accordingly with a thrill of strange emotion⁠—a strange, sudden, guilty suffusion of delight over all his tingling frame and aching heart, even in the midst of his suffering, that he felt the light touch of Lady Western’s hand first laid on his arm, then softly stealing within it in the sudden sympathy which possessed her as she looked up into his colourless face. It was pity and natural kindness which prompted the young Dowager to this unwonted familiar touch. She was sorry for him to the bottom of her heart⁠—she would fain have made him amends somehow for the terrible evil which had come upon him. With the natural impulse of a woman to caress or soothe, or cheat a man anyhow out of that look of suffering which it is intolerable to her to see on his face, Lady Western acted instinctively, without thinking what she did. She slid her beautiful hand into his arm, clung to him, looked up with her lovely appealing face and eyes full of tears to the pale face of the minister, which that touch moved beyond all expression. If he did not stop and take her into his arms, and lean his great anguish upon her in a sweetness of relief unspeakable and measureless, it was only because ordinary rule and custom are stronger than even passion. He was as much deceived as if he had done it, the poor young deluded soul. Out of the thunder and storm, all at once, without prelude or warning, he thought it was the light of love that broke upon him all radiant and glorious. With that he could brave all, overcome all; for that he could be content to fathom any depths of wretchedness. So he thought, as he looked down from those sudden heights of unhoped-for tremulous blessedness into that lovely face, and saw it trembling with divine compassion and tenderness. So he thought the ice breaking, the depths stirring in his own soul. Hope, deliverance, happiness, a delight more exquisite still, that consolation of love which makes anguish itself sweet, breathed over the poor young Nonconformist as that hand slid within his arm. His very brain grew dizzy with the sweetness of relief, the sudden ease that possessed his soul.

“Oh, Mr. Vincent, my heart is breaking; what shall we do⁠—what shall we do?” cried Lady Western. “If it is true, I shall never dare speak to you again, and I feel for you to the bottom of my heart. Oh, Mr. Vincent, you don’t think she did it? I am sure she did not do it⁠—your sister! It was bad enough before,” cried the lovely creature, crying without restraint, but still holding his arm and gazing up into his face, “but now my heart is broken. Oh, will you tell me what I must do? I will not go to him, for he has been a bad man; and I dare not go to your dear mother as I should like to go; and I feel for you, oh, to the very bottom of my heart!”

“Then I can bear it,” said Vincent. Though he did not speak another word, the sound of his voice, the expression of his face, betrayed him. He put his hand involuntarily upon the little hand that rested on his arm. It was all so sudden that his self-command forsook him. A smile trembled upon his face as he looked down at her with all his heart in his eyes. “Then I can bear it,” said the poor young minister, overwhelmed and penetrated by that exquisite consolation. Lady Western gave a little start of alarm as she read the unmistakable meaning in his face. She withdrew her hand hastily with a flush of radiant colour and downcast look of fright and shame.