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When the minister fully came to himself, it was after a long rapid walk of many miles through the silent fields and hazy country. There the clouds cleared off from him in the quietness. When he began to see clearly he turned back towards Carlingford. Nothing now stood between him and the crisis which henceforward must determine his personal affairs. He turned in the long country road, which he had been pursuing eagerly without knowing what he was doing, and gazed back towards the distant roofs. His heart ached and throbbed with the pangs that were past. He had a consciousness that it stirred within his breast, still smarting and thrilling with that violent access of agony—but the climax was over. The strong pulsations fell into dull beats of indefinite pain. Now for the other world—the neutral-coloured life. Vincent did not very well know which road he had taken, for he had not been thinking of where he was going; but it roused him a little to perceive that his homeward way brought him through Grove Street, and past Siloam Cottage, where Mr. Tufton lived.
Mrs. Tufton was at the window, behind the great geranium, when the minister came in sight. When she saw him she tapped upon the pane and beckoned him to go in. He obeyed the summons, almost without impatience, in the languor of his mind. He went in to find them all by the fire, just as they had been when he came first to Carlingford. The old minister, in his armchair, holding out his flabby white hand to his dear young brother; the invalid daughter still knitting, with cold blue eyes, always vigilant and alert, investigating everything. It was a mild day, and Mrs. Tufton herself had shifted her seat to the window, where she had been reading aloud as usual the Carlingford Gazette. The motionless warm air of the little parlour, the prints of the brethren on the walls, the attitudes of the living inhabitants, were all unchanged from the time when the young minister of Salem paid his first visit, and chafed at Mr. Tufton’s advice, and heard with a secret shiver the prophecy of Adelaide, that “they would kill him in six months.” He took the same chair, again making a little commotion among the furniture, which the size of the room made it difficult to displace. It was with a bewildering sensation that he sat down in that unchangeable house. Had time really gone on through all these passions and pains, of which he was conscious in his heart? or had it stood still, and were they only dreams? Adelaide Tufton, immovable in her padded chair, with pale blue eyes that searched through everything, had surely never once altered her position, but had knitted away the days with a mystic thread like one of the Fates. Even the geranium did not seem to have gained or shed a single leaf.
“I have just been reading in the Gazette the report of last night’s meeting,” said good Mrs. Tufton. “Oh, Mr. Vincent, I was so glad—your dear mother herself, if she had been there, could not have been happier than I was. I hope she has seen the Gazette this morning. You young men always like the Times; but they never put in anything that is interesting to me in the Times. Perhaps, if she has not seen it, you will put the paper in your pocket. Indeed, it made me as happy as if you had been my own son. I always say that is very much how Mr. Tufton and I feel for you.”
“Yes, it went off very well,” said the old minister. “My dear young brother, it all depends on whether you have friends that know how to deal with a flock; nothing can teach you that but experience. I am sorry I dare not go out again tonight—it cost me my night’s rest last night, as Mrs. Tufton will tell you; but that is nothing in consideration of duty. Never think of ease to yourself, my dear young friend, when you can serve a brother; it has always been my rule through life—”
“Mr. Vincent understands all that,” said Adelaide; “that will do, papa—we know. Tell me about Lady Western’s marriage, Mr. Vincent. I daresay you were invited, as she was such a friend of yours. It must have made an awkwardness between you when she turned out to be Colonel Mildmay’s sister; but, to be sure, those things don’t matter among people in high life. It was delightful that she should marry her old love after all, don’t you think? Poor Sir Joseph would have left a different will if he had known. Parted for ten years and coming together again! it is like a story in a book—”
“I do not know the circumstances,” said poor Vincent. He turned to Mr. Tufton with a vain hope of escaping. “I shall have to bid you goodbye shortly,” said the minister; “though it was very good of the Salem people not to dismiss me, I prefer—”
“You mean to go away?” said Adelaide; “that will be a wonderful piece of news in the connection; but I don’t think you will go away: there will be a deputation, and they will give you a piece of plate, and you will remain—you will not be able to resist. Papa never was a preacher to speak of,” continued the dauntless invalid, “but they gave him a purse and a testimonial when he retired; and you are softhearted, and they will get the better of you—”
“Adelaide!” said Mrs. Tufton, “Mr. Vincent
