The New Rector

"Indeed," said the curate a little thickly. His face had grown hot, but the increasing darkness concealed this.

"Yes," the archdeacon resumed, in a confidential tone which was yet pretty audible through the room. "You have heard, no doubt, that Mr. Lindo has resigned the living?"

The curate nodded. At that moment he dared not speak. A dreadful thought was in his mind. What if the archdeacon's good news was news that the earl declined to receive the resignation? Some people might call that good news! The mere thought struck him dumb.

The archdeacon's next words resolved his doubts. "Frankly," the elder man said in a genial tone, "I am sorry-sorry that circumstances have forced him to take so extreme a step. But having said that, Mr. Clode, I have done for the present with regret, and may come to pleasanter matter. I have to congratulate you. I am happy to say that Lord Dynmore, whom I saw yesterday, has authorized me to offer the living to you."

The newspaper rustled in the curate's grasp, and for a moment he did not answer. Then he said huskily, "To me?"

"Yes," the archdeacon answered expansively-it was certainly a pleasant task he had in hand, and he could not help beaming over it. "To you, Mr. Clode. On one condition only," he continued, "which is usual enough in all such cases, and I venture to think is particularly natural in this case. I mean that you have your late rector's good word."

"Mr. Lindo's good word?" the curate stammered.

"Of course," the unconscious archdeacon answered.

The curate's jaw dropped; but by an effort he forced a ghastly smile. "To be sure," he said. "There will be no difficulty about that, I think."

"No," replied the other, "for I have just seen him, and can say at once that he is prepared to give it you. He has behaved throughout in a most generous manner, and the consequence is that I have nothing more to do except to offer you my congratulations on your preferment."

For a moment Clode could scarcely believe in his happiness. In the short space of two minutes he had tasted to the full both the pleasure of hope and the pang of despair. Could it be that all that was over already? That the period of waiting and uncertainty was past and gone? That the prize to which he had looked so long-and with the prize the woman he loved-was his at last? – was actually in his grasp?

His head reeled, great as was his self-control, and a haze rose before his eyes. As this passed away he became conscious that the archdeacon was shaking his hand with great heartiness, and that the thing was real! He was rector, or as good as rector, of Claversham. The object of his ambition was his! He was happy: perhaps it was the happiest moment of his life. He had even time to wonder whether he could not do Lindo a good turn-whether he could not somehow make it up to him.

"You are very good," he muttered, gratefully pressing the archdeacon's hand.

"I am glad it is not a stranger," that gentleman replied heartily. "Oh," he continued, turning and speaking in a different tone, "is that you, Mr. Bonamy? Well, there can be no harm in your hearing the news also. You are people's warden, of course, and have a kind of claim to hear it early. To be sure you have."

"What is the news?" Mr. Bonamy asked rather shortly. He had risen and drawn near unnoticed, Jack Smith behind him. "Do I understand that Lord Dynmore has accepted the rector's resignation?"

"That is so."

"And that he proposes to present Mr. Clode?" the lawyer continued, looking at the curate as he named him.

"Precisely," replied the archdeacon, without hesitation.

"I hope you have no objection, Mr. Bonamy," said the curate, bowing slightly with a gracious air. He could afford to be gracious now. He even felt good-as men in such moments do.

But in the lawyer's response there was no graciousness, nor much apparent goodness. "I am afraid," he said, standing up gaunt and stiff, with a scowl on his face, "that I must take advantage of that saving clause, Mr. Clode. I am people's warden, as the archdeacon says, and frankly I object to your appointment-to your appointment as rector here."

"You object!" the curate stammered, between wrath and wonder.

"Bless me!" exclaimed the archdeacon in unmixed astonishment. "What do you mean?"

"Just what I say. I object," repeated the lawyer firmly. This time Clode said nothing, but his eyes flashed, and he drew himself up, his face dark with passion. "Shall I state my objection now?" Mr. Bonamy continued, with the utmost gravity. "It is not quite formal, but-very well, I will do so. I have rather a curious story to tell, and I must go back a short time. When Mr. Lindo's honesty in accepting the living was called in question about a month ago, he referred to the letters in which Lord Dynmore's agents conveyed the offer to him. He had those letters by him. Naturally, he had preserved them with care, and he began to regard them in the light of valuable evidence on his behalf, since they showed the facts brought to his knowledge when he accepted the living. I have said that he had preserved them with care; and, indeed, he is prepared to say to-day, that from the time of his arrival here until now, they have never, with his knowledge or consent, passed out of his possession."

The lawyer's rasping voice ceased for a moment. Stephen Clode's face was a shade paler, but away from the gas-jets this could not be distinguished. He was arming himself to meet whatever shock was to come, while below this voluntary action of the brain his mind ran in an undercurrent of fierce, passionate anger against himself-anger that he had ever meddled with those fatal letters. Oh, the folly, the uselessness, the danger of that act, as he saw them now!

"Nevertheless," Mr. Bonamy resumed in the same even, pitiless tone, "when Mr. Lindo referred to these letters-which he kept, I should add, in a locked cupboard in his library-he found that the first in date, and the most important of them all, had been mutilated."

The curate's brow cleared. "What on earth," he broke out, "has this to do with me, Mr. Bonamy?" And he laughed-a laugh of relief and triumph. The lawyer's last words had lifted a weight from his heart. They had found a mare's nest after all.

"Quite so!" the archdeacon chimed in with good-natured fussiness. "What has all this to do with the matter in hand, or with Mr. Clode, Mr. Bonamy? I fail to see."

"In a moment I will show you," the lawyer answered. Then he paused, and, taking a letter-case form his pocket, leisurely extracted from it a small piece of paper. "I will first ask Mr. Clode," he continued, "to tell us if he supplied Mr. Lindo with the names of a firm of Birmingham solicitors."

"Certainly I did," replied the curate haughtily.

"And you gave him their address, I think?"

"I did."

"Perhaps you can tell me, then, whether that is the address you wrote for him," continued the lawyer smoothly, as he held out the paper for the curate's inspection.

"It is," Clode answered at once. "I wrote it for Mr. Lindo, in my own room, and gave it him there. But I fail to see what all this has to do with the point you have raised," he continued with considerable heat.

"It has just this to do with it, Mr. Clode," the lawyer answered drily, a twinkle in his eyes-"that this address is written on the reverse side of the very piece of paper which is missing from Mr. Lindo's letter-the important letter I have described. And I wish to ask you, and I think it will be to your interest to give as clear an answer to the question as possible, how you came into possession of this scrap of paper."

The curate glared at his questioner. "I do not understand you," he stammered. And he held out his hand for the paper.

"I think you will when you look at both sides of the sheet," replied the lawyer, handing it to him. "On one side there is the address you wrote. On the other are the last sentence and signature of a letter from Messrs. Gearns & Baker to Mr. Lindo. The question is a very simple one. How did you get possession of this piece of paper?"

Clode was silent-silent, though he knew that the archdeacon was looking at him, and that a single hearty spontaneous denial might avert suspicion. He stood holding the paper in his hand, and gazing stupidly at the damning words, utterly unable to comprehend for the moment how they came to be there. Little by little, however, as the benumbing effects of the surprise wore off, his thoughts went back to the evening when the address was written, and he remembered how the rector had come in and surprised him, and how he had huddled away the letters. In his disorder, no doubt, he had left one lying among his own papers, and made the fatal mistake of tearing from it the scrap on which he had written the address.

He saw it all as he stood there, still gazing at the piece of paper, while his rugged face grew darkly red and then again a miserable sallow, and the perspiration sprang out upon his forehead. He felt that the archdeacon's eyes were upon him, that the archdeacon was waiting for him to speak. He saw the mistake he had made, but his brain, usually so ready, failed to supply him with the explanation he required.

"You understand?" Mr. Bonamy said slowly. "The question is, how this letter came to be in your room that evening, Mr. Clode. That is the question."

"I cannot say," he answered huskily. He was so shaken by the unexpected nature of the attack, and by the strange and ominous way in which the evidence against him had arisen, that he had not the courage to look up and face his accuser. "I think-nay, I am sure, indeed-that the rector must have given me the paper," he explained, after an awkward pause.

"He is positive he did not," Mr. Bonamy answered.

Then Clode recovered himself and looked up. After all, it was only his word against another's. "Possibly he is," he said, "and yet he may be mistaken. I cannot otherwise see how the paper could have come into my hands. You do not really mean," he continued with a smile, which was almost easy, "to charge me with stealing the letter, I suppose?"

"Well, to be quite candid, I do," Mr. Bonamy replied curtly. Nor was this unexpected slap in the face rendered more tolerable by the qualification he hastened to add-"or getting it stolen."

The curate started. "This is not to be borne," he cried hotly. He looked at the archdeacon as if expecting him to interfere. But he found that gentleman's face grave and troubled, and, seeing he must expect no help from him at present, he continued, "Do you dare to make so serious an accusation on such evidence as this, Mr. Bonamy?"

"On that," the lawyer replied, pointing to the paper, "and on other evidence besides."

The curate flinched. Had they found Felton, the earl's servant? Had they any more scraps of paper-any more self-wrought damning evidence of that kind? It was only by an effort, which was apparent to one at least of his hearers, that he gathered himself together, and answered, with a show of promptitude and ease, "Other evidence? What, I ask? Produce it!"

"Here it is," said Mr. Bonamy, pointing to Jack Smith, who had been standing at his elbow throughout the discussion.

"What has he to do with it?" Clode muttered with dry lips.

"Only this," the barrister said quietly, addressing himself to the archdeacon. "That some time ago I saw Mr. Clode replace a packet in the cupboard in the rector's library. He only discovered my presence in the room when the cupboard door was open, and his agitation on observing me struck me as strange. Afterward I made inquiries of Mr. Lindo, without telling him my reason, and learned that Mr. Clode had no business at that cupboard-which was, in fact, devoted to the rector's private papers."

"Perhaps, Mr. Clode, you will explain that," said the lawyer with quiet triumph.

He might have denied it had he spoken out at once. He might have given Jack the lie. But he saw with sudden and horrible clearness how this thing fitted that other thing, and this evidence corroborated that; and he lost his presence of mind, and for a moment stood speechless, glaring at his new accuser. He did not need to look at the archdeacon to be sure that his face was no longer grave only, but stern and suspicious. The gas-jets flared before his eyes and dazzled him. The room seemed to be turning. He could not answer. It was only when he had stood for an age, as it seemed to him, dumb and self-convicted before those three faces, that he summoned up courage to mutter, "It is false. It is all false, I say!" and to stamp his foot on the floor.

But no one answered him, and he quailed. His nerves were shaken. He, who on ordinary occasions prided himself on his tact and management, dared not now urge another word in his own defence lest some new piece of evidence should arise to give him the lie. The meaning silence of his accusers and his own conscience were too much for him. And, suddenly snatching up his hat, which lay on a chair beside him, he rushed from the room.

He had not gone fifty yards along the pavement before he recognized the mad folly of this retreat-the utter surrender of all his hopes and ambitions which it meant. But it was too late. The strong man had met a stronger. His very triumph and victory had gone some way toward undoing him, by rendering him more open to surprise and less prepared for sudden attack. Now it was too late to do more than repent. He saw that. Hurrying through the darkness, heedless whither he went, he invented a dozen stories to explain his conduct. But always the archdeacon's grave face rose before him, and he rejected the clever fictions and the sophisms in support of them, which his ingenuity was now so quick to suggest.

How he cursed the madness, the insensate folly, which had wrecked him! Had he only let matters take their own course and stood aside, he would have gained his ends! For a minute and a half he had been as good as rector of Claversham. And now!

Laura Hammond, crossing the hall after tea, heard the outer door open behind her, and, feeling the cold gust of air which entered, stopped and turned, and saw him standing on the mat. He had let himself in in this way on more than one occasion before, and it was not that which in a moment caused her heart to sink. She had been expecting him all day, for she knew the crisis was imminent, and had been hourly looking for news. But she had not been expecting him in this guise. There was a strange disorder in his air and manner. He was wet and splashed with mud. He held his hat in his hand, as if he had been walking bareheaded in the rain. His eyes shone with a wild light, and he looked at her oddly. She turned and went toward him. "Is it you?" she said timidly.

"Oh, yes, it is I," he answered, with a forced laugh. "I want to speak to you." And he let drop the portière, which he had hitherto held in his hand.

There was a light in the breakfast-room, which opened on the hall, and she led the way into that room. He followed her and closed the door behind him. She pointed to a chair, but he did not take it. "What is it?" she said, looking up at him in real alarm. "What is the matter, Stephen?"

"Everything!" he answered, with another laugh. "I am leaving Claversham."

"You are leaving?" she said incredulously.

"Yes, leaving!" he answered.

"To-night?" she stammered.

"Well, not to-night," he answered, with rude irony. "To-morrow. I have been within an ace of getting the living, and I-I have lost it. That is all."

Her cheek turned a shade paler, and she laid one hand on the table to steady herself. "I am so sorry," she murmured.

He did not see her tremor; he heard only her words, and he resented them bitterly. "Have you nothing more to say than that?" he cried.

She had much more to say-or, rather, had she said all that was in her mind she would have had. But his tone helped her to recover herself-helped her to play the part on which she had long ago decided. In her way she loved this man, and her will had melted at sight of him, standing downcast and defeated before her. Had he attacked her on the side of her affections he might have done much-he might have prevailed. But his hard words recalled her to her natural self. "What would you have me say?" she answered, looking steadily across the table at him. Something, she began to see, had happened besides the loss of the living-something which had hurt him sorely. And as she discerned this, she compared his dishevelled, untidy dress with the luxury of the room, and shivered at the thought of the precipice on the brink of which she had paused.

He did not answer.

"What would you have me say?" she repeated more firmly.

"If you do not know, I cannot teach you," he retorted, with a sneer.

"You have no right to say that," she replied bravely. "You remember our compact."

"You intend to keep to it?" he answered scornfully.

She had no doubt about that now, and she summoned up her courage by an effort. "Certainly I do," she murmured. "I thought you understood me. I tried to make my meaning clear."

Clode did not answer her at once. He stood looking at her, his eyes glowing. He knew that his only hope, if hope there might be, lay in gaining some word from her now-now, before any rumor to his disadvantage should get abroad in the town. But his temper, long restrained, was so infuriated by disappointment and defeat, that for the moment love did not prevail with him. He knew that a tender word might do much, but he could not frame it. When he did at last find tongue it was only to say, "And that is your final decision?"

"It is," she answered in a low voice. She did not dare to look up at him.

"And all you have to say to me?"

"Yes. Except that I wish you well. I shall always wish you well, Mr. Clode," she muttered.

"Thank you," he answered coldly.

So coldly, and with so much composure, that she did not guess the gust of hatred of all things and all men which was in his heart. He was beside himself with love, rage, disappointment. For a moment longer he stood gazing at her downcast face. But she did not look up at him; and presently, in a strange silence, he turned and went out of the room.

CHAPTER XXV

HUMBLE PIE

The success of reticence is great. Mr. Bonamy and his nephew, as they went home to tea after their victory, plumed themselves not a little upon the proof of this which they had just given Mr. Clode. They said little, it is true; even to one another, but more than once Mr. Bonamy chuckled in a particularly dry manner, and at the top of the street Jack made an observation "You think the archdeacon was satisfied?" he asked, turning to his companion for a moment.

"Absolutely," quoth Mr. Bonamy; and he strode on with one hand in his pocket, his coat-tails flying, and his money jingling in a manner inimitable by any other Claversham person.

At tea they were both silent upon the subject, but the lawyer presently let drop the fact that the earl had accepted the rector's resignation. Jack, watchfully jealous, poor fellow, yet in his jealousy loyal to the core, glanced involuntarily at Kate to see what effect the news produced upon her; and then glanced swiftly away again. Not so swiftly, however, that the change in the girl's face escaped him. He saw it flush with mingled pride and alarm, and then grow grave and thoughtful. After that she kept her eyes averted from him, and he talked busily to Daintry. "I must be leaving you to-morrow," he said by-and-by, as they rose from the table.

"You will be coming back again?" Mr. Bonamy answered, interrupting a loud wail from Daintry. It should be explained that Jack had not stayed through the whole of these weeks at Claversham, but had twice left for some days on circuit business. Mr. Bonamy thought he was meditating another of these disappearances.

"I should like to do so," Jack answered quietly, "but I must get back to London now."

"Well, your room will be ready for you whenever you like to come to us," Mr. Bonamy replied with crabbed graciousness. And he fully meant what he said. He had grown used to Jack's company. He saw, too, the change his presence had made in the girls' lives, and possibly he entertained some thoughts of a greater change which the cousin might make in the life of one of them.

So he was sorry to lose Jack. But Daintry was inconsolable. When she and Kate were alone together she made her moan, sitting in a great chair three sizes too big for her, with her legs sprawling before her, her hands on the chair-arms, and her eyes on the fire. "Oh, dear, what shall we do when he is gone, Kate?" she said disconsolately. "Won't it be miserable?"

Kate, who was bending over her work, and had been unusually silent for some time, looked up with a start and a rush of color to her cheeks. "When who is gone-oh, you mean Jack!" she said rather incoherently.

"Of course I do," Daintry answered crossly. "But you never did care for Jack."

"You have no right to say that," Kate answered quickly, letting her work drop for the moment. "I think Jack is one of the noblest, the most generous-yes," she continued quickly, "the bravest man I have ever known, Daintry."

Her voice trembled, and Daintry saw with surprise that her eyes were full of tears. "I never thought you felt like that about him," the younger girl answered penitently.

"Perhaps I did not a little while back," Kate answered gently, as she took up her work again. "I know him better now, that is all."

It was quite true. She knew him better now. A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind. Love, which blinds our eyes to some things, opens them to others. Had Jack offered Kate "Their Wedding Journey" now she might still have asked him to change the book for another, but assuredly she would not have told him it sounded silly, nor hurt his feelings by so much as a look.

It was quite true that she thought him all she said, that her eyes grew moist for his sake. But his was the minute only; the hour was another's. Daintry, proceeding to speculate gloomily on the dulness of Claversham without Jack, thought her sister was attending to her, whereas Kate's thoughts were far away now, centred on a fair head and a bright boyish face, and a solitary room in which she pictured Reginald Lindo sitting alone and despondent, the short-lived brilliance of his Claversham career already extinguished. What were his thoughts, she wondered. Was he regretting-for the strongest have their hours of weakness-the step he had taken? Was he blaming her for the advice she had given? Was he giving a thought to her at all, or only planning the new life on which he must now enter-forming the new hopes which must henceforth cheer him on?

Kate let her work drop and looked dreamily before her. Assuredly the prospect was a dull and uninviting one. Before his coming there had always been the unknown something, which a girl's future holds-a possibility of change, of living a happier, fuller life. But now she had nothing of this kind before her. He had come and robbed her even of this, and given her in return only regret and humiliation, and a few-a very few-hours of strange pleasure and sunshine and womanly pride in a woman's influence nobly used. Yet would she have had it otherwise? No, not for all the unknown possibilities of change, not though Claversham life should stretch its dulness unbroken through a century.

She was sitting alone in the dining-room next morning, Mr. Bonamy being at the office, and Daintry out shopping, when the maid came in and announced that Mr. Lindo was at the door and wished to see her. "Are you sure that he did not ask for Mr. Bonamy?" Kate said, rising and laying down her work with outward composure and secret agitation.

"No; he asked particularly for you, miss," the servant answered, standing with her hand on the door.

"Very well; you can show him in here," Kate replied, casting an eye round her, but disdaining to remove the signs of domestic employment which met its scrutiny. "He has come to say good-by," she thought to herself; and she schooled herself to play her part fitly and close the little drama with decency and reserve.

He came in looking very thoughtful. She need not have feared for her father's papers, her sister's dog's-eared Ollendorf, or her own sewing. He did not so much as glance at them. She thought she saw business in his eye, and she said as he advanced, "Did you wish to see me or my father, Mr. Lindo?"

"You, Miss Bonamy," he answered, shaking hands with her. "You have heard the news, I suppose?"