“It’s me as is to blame,” said the worthy deacon. “If it hadn’t have been as the pastor wouldn’t pass the door without coming in, I’d not have had him here today; and if you women would think, you’d see. We’re stanch—and Mr. Vincent ain’t no call to trouble himself about us; but Pigeon and them, you see, as went off in a huff yesterday—that’s what the minister has got to do. You shan’t be kep’ no longer, sir, in my house. Duty afore pleasure, that’s my maxim. Good mornin’, and I hope as you won’t meet with no unpleasantness; but if you should, Mr. Vincent, don’t be disheartened, sir—we’ll pull you through.”
With this encouraging sentiment, Vincent was released from Mrs. Tozer’s parlour. He drew a long breath when he got out to the fresh air in the street, and faced the idea of the Pigeons and other recusants whom he was now bound to visit. While he thought of them, all so many varieties of Mrs. Tozer’s parlour, without the kindness which met him there, the heart of the young Nonconformist failed him. Nothing but gratitude to Tozer could have sent him forth at all on this mission of conciliation; but now on the threshold of it, smarting from even Tozer’s well-intentioned patronage, a yearning for a little personal comfort seized upon Vincent’s mind. It was his duty to go away towards Grove Street, where the poulterer’s residence was; but his longing eyes strayed towards Grange Lane, where consolation dwelt. And, besides, was it not his duty to watch over the real criminal, for whose mysterious wickedness poor Susan had suffered? It was not difficult to foresee how that argument would conclude. He wavered for a few minutes opposite Masters’s shop, gave a furtive glance back towards the butterman’s, and then, starting forward with sudden resolution, took his hasty way to Lady Western’s door; only for a moment; only to see that all was safe, and his prisoner still in custody. Vincent sighed over the thought with an involuntary quickening of his heart. To be detained in such custody, the young man thought, would be sweeter than heaven; and the wild hope which came and went like a meteor about his path, sprang up with sudden intensity, and took the breath from his lips, and the colour from his cheek, as he entered at that green garden door.
Lady Western was by herself in the drawing-room—that room divided in half by the closed doors which Vincent remembered so well. She rose up out of the low chair in which she reposed, like some lovely swan amid billows of dark silken drapery, and held out her beautiful hand to him—both her beautiful hands—with an effusion of kindness and sympathy. The poor young Nonconformist took them into his own, and forgot the very existence of Salem. The sweetness of the moment took all the sting out of his fate. He looked at her without saying anything, with his heart in his eyes. Consolation! It was all he had come for. He could have gone away thereafter and met all the Pigeons in existence; but more happiness still was in store for him—she pointed to a chair on the other side of her worktable. There was nobody else near to break the charm. The silken rustle of her dress, and that faint perfume which she always had about her, pervaded the rosy atmosphere. Out of purgatory, out of bitter life beset with trouble, the young man had leaped for one moment into paradise; and who could wonder that he resigned himself to the spell?
“I am so glad you have come,” said Lady Western. “I am sure you must have hated me, and everything that recalled my name; but it was impossible for anyone to be more grieved than I was, Mr. Vincent. Now, will you tell me about Rachel? She sits by herself in her own room. When I go in she gives me a look of fright which I cannot understand. Fright! Can you imagine Rachel frightened, Mr. Vincent—and of me!”
“Ah, yes. I would not venture to come into the presence of the angels if I had guilt on my hands,” said Vincent, not very well knowing what he said.
“Mr. Vincent! what can you mean? You alarm me very much,” said the young Dowager; “but perhaps it is about her little girl. I don’t think she knows where her daughter is. Indeed,” said Lady Western, with a cloud on her beautiful face, “you must not think I ever approved of my brother’s conduct; but when he was so anxious to have his child, I think she might have given in to him a little—don’t you think so? The child might have done him good perhaps. She is very lovely, I hear. Did you see her? Oh, Mr. Vincent, tell me about it. I cannot understand how you are connected with it at all. She trusted in you so much, and now she is afraid of you. Tell me how it is. Hush! she is ringing her bell. She has seen you come into the house.”
“But I don’t want to see Mrs.—Mrs. Mildmay,” said Vincent,
