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“And have you not been?”

He was silent.

“Your word,” she continued, “has been my law; what you have said I have believed. Have I done wrong?”

“Why are you letting these things trouble you now?” he asked impatiently.

“Because I know that when a woman gives herself wholly to the man she loves, it is common for her to lose him, and I have begun to feel that I am losing you.”

“I do not think I have given you any reason to feel that.”

She did not speak again immediately, but stood with her innocent blue eyes raised beseechingly to his face. Suddenly she took hold of his hands, and said —

“You told me that in the eyes of God we were man and wife, that no marriage ceremony could ever join us together more truly, that marriage really consisted in the union of heart and soul, not in the words of any priest – did you not? Was that true? Am I still your little wife?”

He hesitated. The blood had vanished from his cheek, leaving it haggard and pale; she felt his hands trembling in hers. Then, with a sudden impulse, he took her face between his hands and drew her towards him, as he answered —

“You are, darling. I will not do you any wrong.”

CHAPTER VIII. A SICK-CALL

Mr. Santley’s reply was as sincere at the moment it was spoken as it was impulsive. The saner and better part of him rose in sudden sympathy towards this young, confiding girl who had laid her whole being in his hands, to be his treasure or his plaything. He resolved to be faithful to the solemn pledge he had given her, and to cast from him for ever all thought of Mrs. Haldane, and all memory of that passionate episode of the past. He drew Edith’s hand under his arm and held it there. That warm little bit of responsive flesh and blood had still, he felt, a power to thrill through his nature. He bent down and kissed it. For some time their conversation was embarrassed, but gradually all sense of doubt and estrangement vanished, and he was telling her about his visit to the Manor. A pressure was laid upon him to make her such amends as he was able for his coldness during the past week, and he determined to break the spell which Mrs. Haldane’s beauty threw over him by revealing their old friendship to Edith. It was not wise, but under the stress of remorse and a reviving passion men seldom act wisely. Except in the case of a jealous disposition, a woman is always pleased to hear of her lover’s old vaguely cherished love affairs, when there is no possibility of their ever coming to life again. She knows instinctively, even when she is not told so adoringly, that she supersedes all her predecessors and combines all their virtues and charms. He loved this one for her beauty and sweetness, that one for her clear bright intelligence; each in a different way; but her he loves in both the old ways, and in a new way also which she alone could inspire.

“Mrs. Haldane was an old pupil of mine – indeed, a favourite pupil – many years ago; so, naturally, I am much interested in her,” said the vicar in a tentative manner.

The words were a revelation to Edith; they explained to her all her uneasiness and all his change of manner.

“And you find that you still love her a little?” Edith ventured to say in a sad, faltering tone.

“I never said I loved her, my dear,” replied the vicar, with a forced laugh.

“But you did, did you not? She was your favourite pupil.”

How uncomfortably keen-sighted this young person seemed to be, in spite of her soft, endearing ways!

“Would you be a little jealous if I said I did?” he asked, regarding her with a scrutinizing look.

“Jealous! Oh no. Why should I? Is she not married? And am I not really and truly your little wife?”

He pressed her hand gently for answer.

“And when you saw her again last Sunday, and saw how beautiful she was,” Edith continued, “you felt sorry that you had lost her – just a little regretful, did you not?”

The vicar hesitated, and then did the most foolish thing a man can do in such circumstances – confessed the truth.

“You will not be vexed, darling, if I say that I did feel regret?”

“You loved her very much?”

“She was my first love.” replied the vicar. “But you must remember it was years ago. Long before I knew you; when I was quite a young man.”

“And was she very fond of you?” Edith went on quietly.

“I used to think she was.”

“But she was not true to you?”

“I do not blame her. I do not think it was her fault. Her people were wealthy, and I was poor, a poor teacher.”

“And it was this made you so cold and hard to me all last week?”

Mr. Santley did not answer at once.

It would be brutal to say yes, and he dared not hazard a denial.

“Oh, Charles, she never loved you as I have.”

“Never, never,” replied the vicar hurriedly; and a flush rose to his face.

“When you meet her, when you see her again,” said Edith, grasping his arm with earnest emphasis, “will you remember that? Promise me.”

“I will never forget it,” said the vicar in a low voice.

He did not see Mrs. Haldane again, however, during the week. On the following Sunday his eyes wandered only for a moment towards the Manor pew, and he perceived that she was alone. When he met her after the service his manner was constrained, but she appeared not to notice it. She spoke again of the parish work, and told him that in a day or two she would drive over and accompany him on some of his calls. He looked forward with uneasiness and self-distrust to her cooperation in his daily work. There was an irresistible something, a magical atmosphere, an invisible radiation of the enticing about this woman. Her large glowing black eyes seemed to fasten upon his soul and draw it beyond his control. Her starry smile intoxicated and maddened him. Beside her, Edith was but a weak, delicate child, with a child’s clinging attachment, a child’s credulity and trust, a child’s little gusts of passion. His lost love was a woman – such a woman as men in old times would have perished for as a queen, would have worshipped as a goddess – such a woman, he fancied, as that Naomi whose beauty has been the mysterious tradition of five thousand years.

Early one afternoon, about the middle of the week, the vicar was just about to set out on his customary round of visitation, when Mrs. Haldane’s pony-carriage drove up to the gate. He assisted her to alight, and returned with her to the house.

Miss Santley, who had been as sensitive to the change in her brother as Edith herself, regarded Mrs. Haldane with little favour. She was ready to acknowledge that it was very good and kind of the mistress of Foxglove Manor to interest herself in the wants and suffering of the parish, but she entertained grave misgivings as to the prudence of her brother and this old pupil of his being thrown too frequently together. She was just a little formal and reserved with her visitor, who announced her intention of going with the vicar to this sick-call he had spoken of.

“You will have to walk, however,” said Mr. Santley, “as the cottage is some little distance across the fields.”

“I came prepared for walking,” she replied, with a laugh. “James can put up at the village till our return.”

“Will you do us the favour of taking tea with us?” asked Miss Santley, “You will, require it, if my brother takes you his usual round.”

“Thank you, I shall be very glad. If James calls for me at – what time shall I say? – six, will that be soon enough?” The coachman received his instructions, and Mr. Santley and Mrs. Haldane set out on their first combined mission. They traversed half a dozen fields, and came in sight of a small cluster of cottages lying low in a green hollow. A narrow lane ran past them to Omberley in one direction and to the high-road in another. Half a dozen poplars grew in a line along the lane, and the cottages were surrounded by small gardens, filled with fruit trees.

“What a picturesque little spot!” exclaimed Mrs. Haldane. “I think nothing looks so pretty as an English cottage with its white walls and tiled roof peering out from a cluster of apple; and pear trees.”

“Pretty enough, but damp!” replied the vicar. “In wet weather they are in a perfect quagmire. Ah, listen!”

They were now very near the houses, and the sound to which Mr. Santley called her attention was the voice of a man crying out in great pain.

“What can it be?” asked Mrs. Haldane, with a look of alarm.

“It is the poor fellow we are going to see. He was knocked down and run over by a cart about two years ago. His spine has been injured, and the doctors can do nothing for him. He is quite helpless, and has been bedridden all that time.”

“Poor creature! what a dreadful thing it must be to suffer like that!”

“Sometimes for weeks together he feels no pain. Then he is suddenly seized by the most fearful torture, and you can hear his cries for a great distance.”

As they approached the cottage the man’s voice grew louder, and they could distinguish his words: “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me what to do?”

Mrs. Haldane shuddered. In that green, peaceful, picturesque spot that persistent reiteration of the man’s agony was horrible.

“Will you come in?” asked the vicar doubtfully.

His companion signed her assent, and Mr. Santley knocked gently at the door. In a few seconds some one was heard coming down the staircase, and a little gray-haired, gray-faced woman, dressed in black, came to the door and curtsied to her visitors.

“Mansfield is very bad again to-day?” said the vicar.

“Ay, this be one of his bad days, sir. He have been that bad since Sunday, I haven’t known what to do with him.”

The voice of the sick man suddenly ceased, and he appeared to be listening.

“Who’s there?” he shrieked out, after a pause. “Jennie; blast you! who’s there?”

“He be raving mad, ma’am!” said Mrs. Mansfield, apologetically. “He don’t know what he is saying.”

“Jennie, you damned little varmint – ”

“Hush, John, it be the parson!” his wife called up the staircase.

“To hell with the parson! Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me what to do?”

“I’ll go up to him, sir, and tell him you’re here. He be very bad to-day, poor soul! Will it please you to walk in, ma’am?”

The little woman went upstairs, and her entrance to the sick-room was greeted with a volley of foul curses screamed out in furious rage. Gradually, however, the access of passion was exhausted, and the man was again heard repeating his hopeless appeal for relief.

“How do they live?” asked Mrs. Haldane, glancing about the small but scrupulously clean room in which she stood. “Have they any grown-up children?”

“No, only their two selves. She is the bread-winner. She does knitting and sewing, and the neighbours, who are very kind to her, assist her with her garden and do her many little kindnesses.”

“Poor woman! And she has endured this horrible infliction for two years!”

“If you please, sir, you can come up now,” said Mrs. Mansfield from the top of the stairs.

The vicar went up, and Mrs. Haldane followed him. They entered a pretty large whitewashed bedroom, with raftered roof and a four-post bedstead in the centre of the room. Though meagrely furnished, everything was spotlessly clean and tidy. On the bed lay a great gaunt man, panting and moaning, with his large filmy blue eyes turned up to the roof. He was far above the common stature, and his huge wasted frame, only half hidden by the bedclothes, was piteous to look at. His large venerable head, covered with thin, long white hair, filled one with surprise and regretful admiration. His face was thin and colourless, and a fringe of white beard gave it a still more deathly appearance. One could scarcely believe that the wreck before him was a common labourer. It seemed rather such a spectacle as Beatrice Cenci might have looked on had her father died cursing on his bed.

“Here’s parson come to see thee, and a lady wi’ him,” said Mrs. Mansfield, raising her husband’s head.

He looked at them with his glazed blue eyes, made prominent with pain, and his moaning grew louder, till they could again distinguish the constant cry for release from pain: “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me what to do?”

“Try to think of God, and pray to Him for help,” said the vicar, bending over the suffering man.

“Oh, I have prayed and prayed and prayed,” he replied querulously; “but it does no good.”

“He were praying all day yesterday and singing hymns,” said Mrs. Mans-held. “I don’t know what’s gotten hold of him to-day, but he have been dreadful. And he were ever such a pious, God-fearing man. It fair breaks my heart to hear him swearing like that. But God will not count it against him, for he’s been clean beside himself.”

“Well, let me hear you pray now, Mansfield,” said the vicar. “Turn your heart and your mind to God, and He will comfort you.”

“O God,” said the sick man, with the obedient simplicity of a child, “I turn my heart and my mind to Thee; do Thou comfort me and take me to Thyself. O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of mankind, do Thou remember me in Thy paradise. Look down upon me, O Lord, a miserable offender, and spare Thou them which confess their faults and are truly penitent.”

With a strange light on his white, wasted face, with his gaunt hands folded on the counterpane before him, the old man sat up in bed and prayed in the same loud voice of pain and semi-delirium. A wild, inconceivable, interminable prayer; for long after they had left the house, old Mansfield could be heard some hundreds of yards away, screaming to God for mercy and consolation.

“We had better leave him praying,” said the vicar softly; “and when he begins cursing and swearing again, Mrs. Mansfield, just kneel down and pray in a loud voice beside him. It will suggest a new current to his thoughts.”

“God won’t count his cursing against him, sir, will he?” asked the little woman. “He were ever a sober Christian man till this misery came on him.”

“No, no,” said the vicar; “God judges the heart, not the tongue of delirium.”

“How old is your husband?” inquired Mrs. Haldane.

“He be eighty-one come Martinmas, ma’am.”

“Poor old man! And you do sewing and knitting, do you not?”

“Yes, ma’am, what he lets me do. He be main fractious whiles.”

“And have you plenty to go on with at present?”

“I have what’ll keep me busy for a fortnight yet.”

“I will see you again before then. I hope your husband will soon be better.”

“There be no hope of that, ma’am. The only betterness for him ‘ll be when God takes him.”

“I know you will be able to find a use for this,” said Mrs. Haldane in a whisper, as they went, out of the house. “Goodbye for the present.”

“Oh, ma’am! God bless you!” said Mrs. Mansfield, the tears springing into her eyes as she looked at the gold coin in her hand.

CHAPTER IX. A SUMMER SHOWER

After that first round of visitation Mrs. Haldane and the vicar met very frequently.

She found that she could be of use to a great number of poor people, and the occupation afforded her by her self-imposed duties was novel and interesting. It is pleasant to take the place of Providence, and mete out help and gladness to afflicted humanity. She was actuated by no petty spirit of vanity or ostentation; and though she soon learned that the poorer and more necessitous people are, the more thankless they are as a rule, these disagreeable experiences did not disillusion her. Very often she would leave her carriage at the village inn and accompany Mr. Santley on foot across the fields and down the deep green lanes to the different houses at which he was to call. Their conversations on these occasions were very interesting to her; and more than once as she drove back home in the evening she fell a-thinking of that distant schoolgirl past which Jiad so nearly faded away from her memory, and began to wonder whether, if her family had not so promptly extinguished that little romance of hers, she would now have been the wife of the vicar of Omberley. No word had yet passed between them of that old time, and occasionally she felt just the least curiosity to know how he regarded it. She knew he had not forgotten it, and she smiled to herself as she called to mind the way in which he had addressed her as “Ellen” that first Sunday. She had ever since been only Mrs. Haldane to him. There was a singular fascination about him which she was unable to explain to herself. She remembered his words, his looks his gestures with a curious distinctness. She was conscious that, notwithstanding his reticence, he still entertained a warm attachment to her. She could see it in his eyes, could hear it in the tones of his voice, could feel it in the pressure of his hand. There is no incentive to affection so powerful and subtle as the knowledge that one is beloved. Without any analysis of her feelings or any misgiving whatever, Mrs. Haldane knew that the vicar’s friendship was very dear to her, that his sympathy and counsel were rapidly growing indispensable. Many things troubled her in connection with her husband – his indifference to any form of religion, his stern acceptance of the conclusions of science, however destructive they might be of all that the world had clung to as essential to goodness and happiness, his utter disbelief of the truths of revelation, his rejection of the only God in whom she could place trust and confidence. Diffidently at first, and with pain and doubt, she spoke to Mr. Santley of these troubles, and of the waverings of her own convictions. Her husband was so good, so upright and noble a man, that she could not despair of his some day returning to the faith and the Church of his boyhood. Could the vicar not aid her in winning him back to God? Then, too, at times her husband’s words appealed to her reason so irresistibly that she began to question whether after all she had not spent her life in the worship of a delusion. That did not happen often, but it terrified her that it should be possible for her at any time or in any circumstance to call in question the fatherhood of God or the divinity of Christ.

It was only natural that these matters-should draw the vicar and his fair parishioner very close to each other; and that intimate relationship of soul with soul by subtle degrees widened and widened till each became deeply interested in everything that could in any way affect the other. In spite of his strongest resolve to be true to Edith, Mr. Santley felt himself irresistibly drawn to her beautiful rival. He struggled with the enchantment till further resistance seemed useless, and then he sought refuge in self-deception. His nature, he fancied, was wide enough to include the love of both. To Edith he could give the affection of a husband, to Ellen the anticipative passion of a disfranchised spirit. One was a temporal, the other an eternal sentiment.

One afternoon, as they were returning from a visit, being on the edge of the moss about a couple of miles from the village, they were overtaken by a storm. There was a clump of trees hard by, and they entered it for shelter. Mrs. Haldane had her waterproof with her; but the rain drove in such drenching showers, that the vicar insisted on her standing under his umbrella and sheltering her person with her own. Side by side, with the large trunk of a beech-tree behind them and its tossing branches overhead, they stood there for nearly half an hour. He held his umbrella over her so that his arm almost touched her further shoulder. They were very close together, and while she watched the flying volleys of rain he was gazing on the beautiful complexion of her face and neck, on the rich dark masses of her hair, her sweet arched eyebrows and long curving eyelashes. For years he had not been able to regard her so closely. She did not notice his scrutiny at first, but, when she did, little sunny flushes of colour made her loveliness still more electrical. They were talking of the storm at first, but now there was an interval of silence. She felt his eyes upon her face – they seemed to touch her, and the contract made her cheeks glow. At last she turned and looked straight at him.

“I was thinking of long ago,” he said in answer to her look; “do you remember how once we were caught by a thunderstorm at Seacombe, and we stood together under a tree just as we are now?”

“What an excellent memory you have!” she said with a smile, while her colour again rose.

“I never forget anything,” rejoined Mr. Santley with emphasis. “But surely you too recollect that?”

“Oh yes; I have not forgotten it,” she said lightly. “We were very foolish people in those days.”

“We were very happy people, were we not?

“Yes, I think we were; it was a childish happiness.”

“Manhood, then, has brought me no greater. Ah, Ellen, you seem to have easily let the past slip away from you. With me it is as vivid to-day as if it were only yesterday that you and I walked on the cliffs together. Do you remember we went to the gipsy’s camp in the sand-hills, and had our fortunes told?”

Mrs. Haldane blushed and laughed.

“We were foolish enough to do anything, I think, at that time.”

“That pretty gipsy girl with the dark almond eyes and red-and-amber headdress was sadly out in her reading of our destinies.”

Mrs. Haldane made no reply. These reminiscences, and especially the tone in which the vicar dwelt on them, disquieted her.

“I think the worst of the shower is over now,” she said, stepping from under his umbrella. As she spoke, however, a fresh gust of wind and rain contradicted her, and she stepped further into the shelter of the tree. Mr. Santley clearly understood the significance of her words and action.

“It is raining far too heavily to go yet,” he said gently. “Let me hold my umbrella over you.”

She consented a little uneasily, but he laid his hand upon her arm and said —

“I have displeased you by referring to the past, have I not? Come, be frank with me. Surely we are good enough friends by this to speak candidly to each other.”

She raised her great dark eyes to his face and replied gravely,

“I do not like you to speak of the past in that way. I do not think it is right. I hope we are good enough friends to speak candidly. I have trusted you as a friend, as a very dear and true friend. I wish to keep you always my friend; but when you spoke just now of our childish liking for each other, I do not think you spoke as a – friend.”

The vicar was silent, and his eyes were cast on the ground.

“Have I done you an injustice?” she asked in a low tone, after a little pause. “Then, pray, do forgive me.”

The vicar regarded her with a look of sadness, and took the little gloved hand she held out to him.

“You do me injustice in thinking that I have forgotten your position.”

Mrs. Haldane coloured deeply.

“No,” continued the vicar, “I have not forgotten that. I cannot forget it. And if I still love you with the old love of those vanished years, if I love you with a love which will colour my whole life, do not imagine that it is with any hope of a response in this world. I do your husband no injustice; I do you no dishonour. I loved you long before he knew you; I shall love you still in that after life in which he has deliberately abandoned all claim to you in the very existence of which he places no belief. Between this and then let me be your friend – your brother; let me be as one in whom you will ever find sympathy and devotedness; one who can share and understand all your doubts and distress, all your temptations and trials. I do not ask you to love me; I only ask you to let me love you.” This gust of passion was so sudden, so unexpected, so overwhelming, that almost before she was aware, he had spoken and she had listened. And now as she thought of what he said a strangely mixed sensation of doubt and pleasure awoke within her. All that he wished to be he was indeed already in her eyes – her adviser, sympathiser, friend. Only this secret unexpectant love which lived on the past and the future agitated her. And yet surely it was a pure spiritual love which asked for no return on this side of the grave. These thoughts occurred to her before she took the sober common-sense view of what he had said.

“You are taking too visionary, too feverish a view of life when you speak in that way,” she said gently. “We cannot live on dreams. Our duties, our work, our disappointments and cares are too real for us to be satisfied with any love less real. You will some day meet some one worthy of your affection, capable of sympathising with you and aiding you in your life-work – some one who will be a fitting helpmeet to you. For my part, I think that whenever we have missed what we are apt to consider a great happiness it is a sure sign that God intends some better thing for us.”

The vicar shook his head silently.

“Oh, you must have more faith!” she continued brightly. “And it ought to be very easy for you to have faith in this matter. You have all the advantages on your side. And, if I may be frank with you, I will say that I think you would be happier if you were married. You need some responsive heart, and nowhere could one more need close companionship than in such a place as Omberley.”

The rain had ceased, and as she spoke the last words she glanced up at the clouds breaking away from the sunny blue of the sky.

“I think we may safely start now. How bright and sweet everything looks after the rain; and what a fragrance the fields have!”

Mr. Santley did not attempt to renew the conversation. Clearly she was not in the mood, and he believed that what he had said had fallen as seed in a generous soil, and would germinate in the warmth of her fervid temperament. It was enough that she knew he still loved her.

Such a knowledge is ever dangerous to an imaginative woman. For several days after that incident Mrs. Haldane never thought of the vicar, never heard his name mentioned without at the same time unconsciously recalling – or rather without having flashed upon her a mental picture not only of that little wood near the moss, but of the romantic shore at Seacombe. She felt a strange tender interest in the man who had loved her so long, and still loved her so hopelessly, so unselfishly. Hitherto in their relationship she had only thought of herself, of her own needs and her own happiness. She had looked up to him. But that avowal had changed their position towards one another in a singular way. He to whom every one felt entitled to appeal to for advice, assistance, consolation, was evidently himself in need of human affection. She had hitherto regarded the priest rather than the man, but now the man chiefly engaged her attention, and attracted her sympathy while he excited and perplexed her imagination. What could she do to be of service to him? She set her woman’s wit to work in a woman’s way, and speedily arrived at one means of serving him.

“George,” she said to her husband one morning at breakfast, “I have been thinking of asking an old schoolfellow of mine, Hettie Taylor, to come and spend a few weeks with us. She lives in London, and she will be delighted with the change to the country, I know. What do you say?”

“Beginning to feel lonely already?” he asked, glancing up at her.

“Oh no, not at all. Only I have been thinking of her, and should like to have her with me again for a little while. I am sure you will like her. She is very pretty – such beautiful brown hair and eyes – and decidedly intellectual.”

“Ask her by all means, then.”

“Thanks. I will write to her to-day. No, not to-day – I shall be busy seeing after the children’s picnic. Will you not come, dear? You know you love children.”

“To a picnic, my dear girl!” cried Mr. Haldane aghast.

“Yes, in Barton Wood. The children are all going in a couple of waggons. And there will be some of the old people there if the weather is fine. Do come.”

“A picnic, my dear Nell, is pure atavism – it is one of those lapses into savagery which betray the aboriginal arboreal blood,” said Mr. Haldane, laughing. “No, no; I have too much respect for the civilization of the century and for my personal comfort to willingly retrograde to the Drift Period.”