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FOXGLOVE MANOR
NEW THREE-VOLUME NOVELS
AT ALL LIBRARIES.
PRINCESS NAPRAXINE. By OUIDA.
DOROTHY FORSTER. By WALTER BESANT.
A DRAWN GAME. By BASIL.
ST. MUNGO'S CITY. By SARAH TYTLEK.
HEART SALVAGE BY SEA AND LAND.
By MRS. COOPER.
LONDON: CHATTO AND W1NDUS, PICCADILLY
FOXGLOVE MANOR
a Jiobd
BY
ROBERT BUCHANAN
AUTHOR OF
GOD AND THE MAN," "THE SHADOW OK THE SWORD,'
"THE NEW ABELARD," ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
Honfcon
CHATTO AND W1NDUS, PICCADILLY
1884
[AH rights reserved]
PREFATORY NOTE.
THE following attempt at a tragedy in
fiction (a tragedy, however, without a
tragic ending) must not be construed
into an attack on the English priest-
hood generally. I have simply pictured,
in the Rev. Charles Santley, a type of
man which exists, and of which I have
had personal experience. Fortunately,
such men are uncommon ; still more
fortunately, the clergymen of, the English
Establishment are for the most part sane
and healthy men, too unimaginative for
morbid deviations.
ROBERT BUCHANAN.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER I'AGE
I. ST. CUTHBERT'S ... ... i
II. AT THE VICARAGE ... ... 28
III. " THERE is A CHANGE !" ... 50
IV. GEORGE HALDANE ... ... 69
V. THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD 89
VI. THE UNKNOWN GOD ... 108
VII. CELESTIAL AFFINITIES ... ... 128
VIII. A SICK-CALL ... ... 150
IX. A SUMMER SHOWER ... ... 169
X. THE Kiss ... ... 187
XL EDITH ... ... ... 207
XII. CONSCIENCE ... ... 222
XIII. IN THE LABORATORY ... ... 240
FOXGLOVE MANOR.
CHAPTER I.
ST. CUTHBERT'S.
As the sweet, clear voices of the sur-
pliced choristers rose in the closing
verse of the hymn, and the vicar, in
his white robe and violet hood, ascended
the pulpit steps, old Gabriel Ware,
sexton and doorkeeper of St. Cuthbert's,
limped across the pavement and slipped
into the porch, as his custom was at
sermon-time on Sunday afternoons.
He waited till the singing had ceased
and the congregation had settled in
VOL. I. B
FOXGLOVE MANOR.
their pews ; and while he listened to
the vicar announcing his text — " For in
Him we live, and move, and have our
being " — he fumbled in the pockets
beneath his black gown of office, and
then limped noiselessly out into the
sunshine, where, after a glance round
him, he pulled out a short clay pipe,
well seasoned, filled it with twist, and
began his usual after-dinner smoke.
It was a hot, shimmering July after-
noon, and it was much pleasanter to sit
out of doors on a tombstone, listening
to the vicar's voice as it came though
the dark lancets like a sound of running
water.
Half a mile or so away, nestled in
trees, was the village of Omberley, with
its glimpses of white walls and tiled or
slated roofs. Then there were soft,
hazy stretches of pasture, with idyllic
ST. CUTHBERTS. 3
groupings of cattle and sheep and trees.
The fields of wheat and barley, turnips
and potatoes, lay out idle and warm,
growing and taking no care, and ap-
parently causing none. The sight and
smell of the land filled Gabriel with a
stolid satisfaction at the order of nature
and the providential gift of tobacco.
There was but the faintest breeze
stirring, and it wafted all manner of
sweet odours and lulling whispers about
the graveyard. Everywhere there was
-evidence of a fervent throbbing vitality
and joyousness. The soft green turf
which spread all round the church to
the limits of the churchyard, here
billowing over a nameless grave, here
crusting with moss the base of a tomb-
stone or a marble cross or a pillared
urn, here edging round an oblong plot
brilliant with flowers and hothouse
4 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
plants, — the very turf seemed stirred by
glad impulses, and quivering with a
crush of hurrying insect life. Daisies
and buttercups and little blue and
pink eyed flowers danced among the
restless spears of grass with a merry
hardihood. Laburnums and sycamores
stood drowsing in the hot shining air;
but they were not asleep, and were not
silent. A persistent undertone came
from among their shadowy boughs, as
if the sap were buzzing through every
leaf and stalk. Up their trunks, toiling
through the rugged ravines of the rough
bark, travelling along the branches,
flitting from one cool leaf to another,
myriads of nameless winged and creep-
ing things went to and fro, and added
their murmurs to the vast, vague reso-
nance of life. A soft, ceaseless whisper-
ing was diffused from the tall green
ST. CUTHBERTS. 5
spires of a row of poplars which went
along the iron railing that separated
the enclosure from the high-road. Blue
and yellow butterflies fluttered from one
flowery grave to another ; the big boom-
ing humble-bee went blundering among
the blossoms ; a grasshopper was sing-
ing shrilly in the bushes near the rail-
ing ; a laborious caravan of ants was
crossing the stony wilderness of the
gravel path ; a dragon-fly hawked to and
fro beneath the sycamores ; small birds
dropped twittering on cross or urn for
an instant, flashed away up into a tree,
and then darted off into the fields, as
though too full of excitement and game-
someness to rest more than a moment
anywhere. Soft fleecy masses of lumi-
nous cloud slumbered in the hot blue sky
overhead, and only in its remote deeps
did there seem to be unimpassioned
6 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
quietude and a sabbath stillness — only
there and in the church.
Notwithstanding the dazzling sunshine
and the heat, the church was cool and
dim and fragrant. The black and red
tiles of the pavement, the brown massive
pillars and airy arches of sandstone, the
oaken pews, the spacious sanctuary with
its wide stone steps, affected one with a
refreshing sense of coolness and comfort.
The light entered soft and subdued
through richly stained glass, for the win-
dows looked, not on familiar breadths
of English landscape glowing and ripen-
ing in the July sun, but seemed rather
to open into the strangely coloured
world of nineteen centuries ago. The
blessing of the little children, the raising
of Lazarus, the interview at the well with
the woman of Samaria, the minstrel rout
about the house of the ruler whose little
ST. CUTHBERTS. 7
maid lay not dead but sleeping, took the
place of the mundane scenes beheld
through unhallowed windows. Even
the unpictured lancets were filled with
leaded panes of crimson and blue and
gold. Then there was a faint, pleasant
odour of incense about the building, em-
phasizing the contrast between the mood
of nature and the mood of man. St.
Cuthbert's was floridly ritualistic, and
the vicar was one of those who felt that,
in an age of spiritual disquiet and un-
belief, a man cannot cling with too many
hands to the great Revelation which
appeared to be daily growing more
elusive, and who believed that if the
soul may be lost, it may also be, in a
measure, saved through the senses.
Feigned devotions and the absence of
any appeal to the physical nature of man
had, he was convinced, drawn innumer-
o FOXGLOVE MANOR.
able souls into indifference on the one
hand, and into Catholicism on the other.
If there was a resurrection of the body as
well as of the soul, surely the body ought
not to be abandoned as a thing accursed,
from which no good can come. The
vicar encountered no difficulty in realiz-
ing his views of the dignity of flesh and
blood at St. Cuthbert's.
A thick, softly toned carpet lay on the
broad stone steps which led up to the
communion table. Behind the com-
munion table, and for some distance to
right and left, the sanctuary walls were
hung with richly coloured tapestry. The
table itself — or the altar, as it was usually
called — was draped with violet silk, em-
broidered with amber crosses, and upon
it stood a large crucifix of brass, with
vases of flowers, and massive brazen
candlesticks on either side. In the
.ST. CUTHBERTS. 9
-centre a large brass gasalier was sus-
pended from a large ring, containing an
enamelled cross, and beneath it hung an
oil-lamp, which was kept perpetually
burning. Amid all the coolness and
fragrance and mystical flush of colour,
that little leaf of flame floating in its
glass cup attracted the attention of the
stranger most singularly. It piqued the
imagination, and added an indescribable
feeling of hallowed sorcery to the general
effect, which was that of an influence too
spiritual not to excite reverence, but too
sensuous to be considered sacred. Step-
ping out of the churchyard, with its
throbbing warmth and glad undertones
of commotion, into the cool, soft-lighted,
artificially coloured atmosphere of the
church, one might have felt as if dropped
into the Middle Ages, but for the modern
appearance of the congregation.
10 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
St. Cuthbert's was the fashionable
place of worship at Omberley, and its
afternoon service was always well at-
tended, though at a glance one perceived,
from the chromatic effect of the pews,
that the large majority of the congrega-
tion were of the more emotional sex.
As the vicar gave out his text, his taste
for the bright and beautiful must have
been gratified by the flowers and feathers
and dainty dresses, and still more by the
rows of young and pretty faces which
were raised towards the pulpit with such
varied expression of interest, affection,
and admiration.
The Rev. Charles Santley had been
Vicar of St. Cuthbert's for little less than
a year. He was unmarried, just turned
thirty, a little over the middle height,
and remarkably handsome. It was not
to be wondered at that, with such recom-
ST. CUTHBERTS. 1 1
mendations, the new vicar had at the
very outset fascinated the maids and
matrons of his congregation. A bright
shapely face, with soft dark eyes, a com-
plexion almost feminine in its clear flush,
a broad scholarly forehead, black hair
slightly thinned with study on the brow
and at the temples, black moustache and
short curling black beard, — such was the
face of the vicar as he stood uncovered
before you. His voice was musical and
sympathetic ; the pressure of his hand
invited confidence and trust ; his soft
dark eyes not only looked into your
heart, but conveyed the warmth and
eagerness of his own ; you felt instinc-
tively that here you might turn for help
which would never be found wanting,
and seek advice that would never lead
you astray, appeal for sympathy with a
certainty that you would be understood,
12 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
obey the prompting to transfer the
burthen of spiritual distress with a sure
knowledge that your self-esteem would
never be wounded. Of course there
were ladies of a critical and censorious
disposition among his flock, but even
these were forced to acknowledge the
charm of his presence and the kindliness
of his disposition. Among the men
he was less enthusiastically popular, as
was natural enough ; but he was still
greatly liked for his frankness and
cordiality, and his keen intellect and
sterling common sense commanded their
respect.
On one thing you might always
reckon at St. Cuthbert's — a thoughtful,
eloquent sermon, delivered in a voice
full of exquisite modulations. It hap-
pened often enough that the preacher
forgot the capacities of his hearers, and
ST. CUTHBERTS. 1 5
became dreamy and mystical ; but, though
you failed to comprehend, you were
conscious that the fault lay less with
him than with your own smaller spiritual
nature. This, too, happened only in
certain passages, and never throughout
an entire discourse. He began on the
grass, as the lark does, and gradually
rose higher and higher in the brightening
heavens till your vision failed ; but, if
you waited patiently, he descended again
to earth, still singing.
On this Sunday afternoon, preaching
from the text in the Acts, he held his
hearers spell-bound at the outset. Re-
ferring to the memorable discourse in
which the text occurs, he conjured up be-
fore them Athens — glittering, garrulous,
luxurious, profligate — the Athens St.
Paul had seen. The vivid picture was
crowded with magnificent temples,
14 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
countless altars, innumerable shapes of
mortal loveliness. Here was the Agora,
with its altar of the Twelve Gods, and
its painted cloisters, and its plane trees,
beneath whose shade were disputing
groups of philosophers, in the garb of
their various sects. Gods and goddesses,
in shining marble, in gold and ivory,
caught the eye wherever it fell. There
were altars to Fame and Health and
Energy, to Modesty and Persuasion, to
Pity and to Oblivion. On the ledges
of the precipitous Acropolis glittered
the shrines of Bacchus and /Esculapius,
Venus, Earth, and Ceres. Over all
towered the splendid statue of Pallas,
cast from the brazen spoils of Marathon,
visible, as it flashed in the sun, to the
sailor doubling the distant promontory
of Sunium. Every divinity that it had
entered into the imagination of man to
.ST. CUTHBERTS. 15
conceive or the heart of man to yearn
for, every deified attribute of human
nature, had here its shrine or its
voluptuous image. " Ye men of Athens,
all things which I behold bear witness
to your carefulness in religion." It was
easier, said the Roman satirist, to find
a god than a man in Athens. And
yet these men, with all their civilization,
with all their art and poetry and philo-
sophy, had not found God, and, not-
withstanding all the statues and altars
they had erected, were aware that they
had not found Him;- for St. Paul, as
he traversed their resplendent city, and
beheld their devotions, had found an
altar with this inscription, " To THE
UNKNOWN GOD." Referring then to
those " certain philosophers of the
Epicureans and of the Stoics," who
encountered the apostle, he briefly
1 6 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
sketched the two great systems of Greek
speculation, and their influence on the
morality of the age : the pantheism of
the Stoics, who recognized in the
universe a rational, organizing soul
which produced all things and absorbed
all things, — who perceived in pleasure
no good, in pain no evil, — who judged
virtue to be virtue and vice vice, accord-
ing as they conformed to reason ; the
materialism of the Epicureans, who per-
ceived in creation a fortuitous concourse
of atoms, acknowledged no Godhead,
or, at best, an unknowable, irresponsible
Godhead, throned in happy indifference
far beyond human impetration, — taught
that the soul perished as the body
perished, and was dissipated like a
streak of morning cloud into the infinite
azure of the inane. Following Paul as
the philosophers " took him and brought
ST. CUTH BERTS. I 7
him unto Areopagus," where from im-
memorial time the judges, seated on
benches hewn out of the rock, had sat
under the witnessing heavens, passing"
sentence on the greatest criminals and
deciding the most solemn questions of
religion, he glanced down once more
at the city glittering with temples and
thronged with gods and goddesses, and
bringing into broad contrast the radiant
Apollo and the voluptuous Aphrodite,
with the scourged and thorn-crowned
figure on the cross, he read the message
of the apostle to the pagan world. On
how many altars to-day might not the
words "To the Unknown God" be
fittingly inscribed ! "In Him we live,
and move, and have our being ; " but
how few of us have " felt after " and
found Him! In a strain of impas-
sioned eloquence the preacher spoke of
VOL. i. c
I 8 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
that unseen sustaining presence, which
brooded over and encompassed us ; of
the yearning of the human heart for
communion with the Creator ; of the cry
of anguish which rose from the depths
of our being, when our eyes ached with
straining into the night and saw nothing,
when our quivering hands were reached
out into the infinite and clasped but
darkness ; of the intense need we felt
for a personal, tangible, sympathetic
Being, for an incarnation of the divinity ;
of those ecstatic ascensions of the soul,
in which man "felt after" and actually
touched God ; and, as he spoke, his
glowing words gradually ceased to con-
vey any definite meaning to the great
majority of his hearers : but one face,
flushed with joyous intelligence, one
young beautiful face, with large, liquid
blue eyes of worship, and with eager
ST. CUTHBERTS. 1 9
tremulous lips, was all the while turned
fixedly up to his.
Seated in a little curtained nook near
the organ, a slim, fair girl of two and
twenty watched the preacher with almost
breathless earnestness. She was a
bright little fragile-looking blossom of
a being, who seemed scarcely to have
yet slipped out of her girlhood. Her
face was of that delicate white, tinged
with a spot of pink, which so often
.indicates a consumptive constitution, but
in her case this delicacy of complexion
was owing rather to the fineness of the
material of which nature had moulded
her. Light fine hair, in silky confusion
rather than curls, clustered about her
forehead and temples. Her little hands
still clasped the music -book from which
she had been playing the accompani-
ment of the hymn — for Edith Dove was
20 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
the organist of St. Cuthbert's — as though
from the outset she had been too ab-
sorbed to remember that she was
holding it.
Occasionally the vicar turned towards
the aisle in which she sat, and his glance
rested on her for a moment, and each
time their eyes met Edith's heart beat
more rapidly, and a deeper tinge of
rose-colour brightened her cheeks. But
Mr. Santley showed no sign of kindred
emotion ; he was wholly absorbed in
the fervid thoughts which flowed from
his lips in such strains of exaltation.
As his eyes wandered over the con-
gregation, however, he suddenly saw
another face which was turned atten-
tively towards him, and which made
him pause abruptly. He stopped in
the midst of a sentence. He felt the
action of his heart cease, and he knew
:sr. CUTHBERTS. 21
that the blood was driven from his
cheeks. He looked dazedly down at
his manuscript, but was unable to find
the place where his memory had failed
him. For a few seconds there was dead
silence in the church, and the eyes of
the congregation were turned inquiringly
towards the pulpit. Then, stammering
and flushing, he resumed almost at hap-
hazard. But the enthusiasm of the
preacher had deserted him ; his atten-
tion was distracted by a rush of recol-
lections and feelings which he could
not banish ; the words he had written
seemed to him foreign and purposeless,
and it was only with a resolute effort
that he constrained himself to read the
parallel he had drawn between the
pantheism and materialism of the days
of St. Paul and those of our own time.
To the close of his sermon he never once
22 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
ventured to turn his eyes again in the
direction of that face, but kept them
fixed resolutely upon his manuscript.
Not till he had descended the pulpit
steps and was crossing the chancel, did
he hazard a glance across the church
towards that disquieting apparition.
When the service was ended, and the
choristers, headed by the cross-bearer,
had passed in procession down the nave
to the vestry, the vicar hastily disrobed
and issued into the churchyard. As
with a strange fluttering hopefulness
he had half anticipated, he was being
waited for. A lady was moving slowly
about among the graves, pausing now
and again to read an inscription on a
stone, but keeping a constant observa-
tion on the church doors. As he came
out of the porch, she advanced to meet
him, with a smile upon the face which
ST. CUTHBERT\S. 2 3
had so terribly disconcerted him. She
was a most beautiful, starry-looking
creature — a tall, graceful, supple figure,
with the exquisitely moulded head of a
Greek statue ; a ripe rich complexion
suffused with a blush-rose tint ; large
lovely black eyes full of fire and soft-
ness ; long, curved, black eyelashes ; a
profusion of silky black hair parted in
little waves on a broad, bright forehead ;
and a pair of sweet, red lips.
She held out a little white hand to
him, and, as he took it, their first words
were uttered simultaneously.
" Ellen ! "
" Mr. Santley ! "
<l I never dreamed," said the vicar,
excitedly, " I never dared to hope, to
see you again ! "
" Oh, the world is very small," she
replied gaily, " and people keep crossing
24 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
each other at the most unexpected times
and in the oddest of places. But I am
so glad to see you. Are you doing
well ? You can scarcely imagine how
curious it was when I recognized you
to-day. Of course I had heard your
name as our vicar, but I had no idea
it could bejjw/."
" I am sure you are not more glad
than I am," rejoined the vicar. " Are
you staying at Omberley ? Have you
friends here ? "
She regarded him for a moment with
a mixed expression of surprise and
amusement.
" Do you not know that I am one
of your parishioners now ? " she asked,
with a pleasant laugh.
He looked wonderingly into her dark,
joyous eyes, and felt a sudden sense of
chill and darkness within him, as a quick
ST. CUTHBERTS. 25
intelligence of who and what she now
was flashed into his mind.
"Are you at the Manor ?" he asked,
in a low, agitated voice.
" Yes," she answered, without noticing
his emotion. " We arrived only yester-
day, and have hardly had time yet to
feel that we are at home ; but I could
not resist the inclination to see what
sort of a church, and what sort of a
vicar," she added, with a glance of sly
.-candour, " we had at St. Cuthbert's.
I am really so glad I came. Of course
you will call and see us as soon and
as often as you can, will you not ? Mr.
Haldane will be delighted, I know."
" You are very kind," said the vicar,
scarcely aware of what he was saying.
" Indeed, I wish to be so," she replied,
smiling. " Of course you know Mr.
Haldane ? "
26 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
"No; I have not yet had the pleasure
of meeting him. He — you had gone
abroad before I came to Omberley."
" Then you have not been here
long?"
" Not quite a year yet."
" And do you like the place — and the
people ? '"
" Both, very much indeed ! "
"You are not married yet, I think
Mr. Haldanesaid?"
The vicar looked at her with a sad-
ness that was almost reproachful as he
answered, " No ; I have my sister living
with me."
" How pleasant ! You must bring
Miss Santley with you when you come,
will you not ? "
As she spoke she moved slowly
towards the gateway opening on to the
road, where a little basket-carriage was
ST. CUTHBERTS. 27
awaiting her. He accompanied her, and
for a few seconds there w,as silence
between them. Then they shook hands
again before she got into the carriage,
and she repeated her assurance—
" I am so glad to have met you, Mr.
Santley!"
She took the reins, and, lightly flicking
the ponies with the whip, flashed upon
him a farewell smile from those dark,
spiritual eyes and laughing lips.
The vicar turned back into the church-
yard, and following a narrow path that
led across the sward through a wicket
and a small beech plantation, entered the
Vicarage with a pale, troubled face.
28 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
• CHAPTER II.
AT THE VICARAGE.
WHEN he' reached the house he found
that his presence was needed at the
bedside of a labourer, who had met with
a serious accident a day or two before,
and who was now sinking rapidly. Mr.
Santley was a man who never be-
grudged time or trouble in the interests
of his parishioners ; and, though he had
yet another service to attend, and was
already fatigued by the work of the
day, he readily signified his willingness
to comply with the request of the dying
man, and at once started for the village.
AT THE VICARAGE. 29
He felt at the moment that the duty
placed before him would be a relief
from the thronging recollections and
the wild promptings which had set
his heart and brain in a turmoil.
As he went down the road, however,
the face of the dying man who had
sent to seek his priestly aid, and the
face of the beautiful wife of the owner
of Foxglove Manor, seemed to be striv-
ing for mastery over him ; he was un-
able to concentrate his attention on any
subject. His will was in abeyance, and
he appeared to himself to be in a sort
of waking nightmare, in which the most
distorted thoughts of marriage and death,
of a lost love and of a lost God, of the
mockery of life, the mockery of youth,
the mockery of religion, presented them-
selves before him in a hideous masque-
rade, till the function he was about to
30 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
fulfil appeared to him at one moment a
sacrilege and at another a degrading
folly.
To understand in some degree the
vicar's mental condition, it is necessary
to glance back on his past life. In
early manhood Charles Santley had
been seriously impressed with the sense
of a special vocation to a religious life.
He was the son of a wealthy mer-
chant, whose entire fortune had perished
in one of our great commercial crises,
and whose death had followed close
upon his ruin. Up to that period
Charles had been undecided as to his
choice of a pursuit ; but the necessity of
making an immediate selection resulted
in his devoting himself to the Church.
Barely sufficient had been saved from
the wreck of their property to support
his widowed mother and his sister. For
AT THE VICARAGE. 31
himself, he was endowed with a splendid
physique, a keen intellect, and indomit-
able energy ; and he at once flung him-
self into his new career. He supported
himself by teaching until he was ad-
mitted to orders, when he obtained a
curacy, and eventually, through the
interest of some old friends of his father,
he was presented with the living of St.
Cuthbert's. In the course of these
years of struggle, however, there was
gradually developing within the man a
spirit which threatened to render his
.success worse than useless to him.
Ardent, emotional, profoundly convinced
of the eternal truths of revelation and
of the glorious mission of the Church,
the young clergyman was at the same
time boldly speculative and keenly alive
to the grandiose developments of the
modern schools of thought. It was not
32 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
till he stood on the extreme verge of
science and looked beyond that he fully
realized his position. He then per-
ceived with horror that it was no longer
impossible — that it was even no longer
difficult — to regard the great message
6f redemption as a dream of the world,
:he glorious faith of Christendom as.
i purely ethnic mythology, morality as a
merely natural growth of a natural in-
stinct of self-preservation. Indeed, the
difficulty consisted in believing other-
wise. The Fatherhood of a personal
God was slipping away from his soul ;
the Sonship of a Saviour was melting
into a fantastic unreality ; the conviction
of a personal immortality was dissi-
pating into mental mist and darkness.
The mystery of evil was growing into
a fiendish enigma ; virtue passed him,
and showed herself to be a hollow mask.
AT THE VICARAGE. 33
His whole nature rose in revolt
against this horrible scientific travesty
of God's universe. He shrank back
alike from the new truths and from
the theories evolved from them. His
faith could not stand the test of the wider
knowledge. If God were indeed a
myth, immortality but a dream, virtue
an unprofitable delusion, man simply a
beast gifted with speech, better the old
faith concerning all these — accepted
though it were in despite of reason and
in outrage of immortal truth — than the
hideous simulacra of the new philosophy.
He cast himself back upon the bosom
of the Church ; he clung to her as to the
garment of God ; but he was powerless
to exorcise the spirit of scepticism. It
rose before him in sacred places, it
scoffed at his most earnest and impas-
sioned utterances ; he seemed to hear
VOL. I. D
34 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
within himself cynical laughter as he
stood at the bedside of the dying ;
when he knelt to pray it stood at his
ear and suggested blasphemy ; it con-
verted the solemn light of the Church
into a motley atmosphere of superstition;
it stimulated his strong animal nature to
the very bounds of self-restraint. Still, if
he was unable to exorcise it, he had yet
the strength to contend with and to
master it. Precisely because he was
sceptical he was rigid in outward doc-
trine, zealous for forms, and indefatigable
in the discharge of his clerical functions.
In his passionate endeavour to convince
himself, he convinced his hearers and
confirmed them in the faith in which he
was himself unable to trust.
To-day the old conflict between the
sacerdotal and the sceptical was com-
plicated by new elements of spiritual
AT THE VICARAGE. 35
discord. After seven years of hopeless
separation, Charles Santley had once
more stood face to face with the em-
bodied dream and inspiration of his
early manhood, and had found her, in
the full lustre of her peerless woman-
hood, another man's wife. During
those years he had, it was true, recon-
ciled himself to what then had been
forced upon him as the inevitable,
and he had sternly set himself to
master the 'problem of his existence,
without any secret hope that in the
coming years his success might bring
her within his reach ; but he had never
forgotten her. She was to him the
starry poetry of his youth. He looked
back to the time when he had first
known and loved her, as a sadder and
a wiser world looks back to the Golden
Age. The memory of her was the
36 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
ghost of an ancient worship, flitting in
a dim rosy twilight about the Elysian
fields of memory, and, it being twilight,
the fields were touched with a hallowed
feeling of loss and a divine sentiment
of regret. And now — oh, bitter irony
of time and fortune ! — now that he had
achieved success, now that all the old
gulfs which had separated them were
spanned with golden bridges, now that
he might have claimed her and she
might have been proud to acknowledge
the claim, she once more crossed his
life — a vision of beauty, a star of inspi-
ration— and once more he knew that
she was hopelessly, infinitely more
hopelessly than ever, raised beyond his
seeking.
He was detained so long at the bed-
side of the dying man that, by the time
he had again reached the Vicarage, the
AT THE VICARAGE. 37
bells were ringing for evening service
and the western sky was ablaze with
sunset. In the church the light
streamed through the lancets and the
painted casements, filling the air with
motley breadths of glowing colour, and
painting pillar and arch and the brown
sandstone with glorious blazonry. Even
in the curtained nook near the organ
the space was flooded with enchanted
lights, and Edith Dove sat beside the
tall gilded instrument like a picture of
St. Cecilia in an illuminated missal.
In the pulpit the vicar stood as if
transfigured. He spoke, too, as though
he felt that this was the splendour
of a new heaven opening upon a new
earth, and the glad rustle of the trees
in the cool breeze outside was the
murmur of paradise.
" We shall not all sleep, but we shall all
3 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
be changed," were the words of his text,
and throughout the fervid exposition of
the apostle's faith in the resurrection the
sweet, blue eyes and the eager lips of
the organist were turned towards the
preacher. He seemed this evening,
however, to be unconscious of her pre-
sence. He addressed himself entirely
to the listeners in the pews in front of
him, and never cast even a solitary
glance towards the aisle where she
sat.
At the close of the service Edith
found Miss Santley waiting for her at
the entrance. It had now been cus-
tomary for several weeks past for Miss
Dove to go over to the Vicarage
on Sunday evening and remain to
supper with Mr. Santley and his sister.
They went slowly through the church-
yard together, and took the little path
AT THE VICARAGE. 39
which led to the house. They re-
mained chatting at the wicket for a
few moments, expecting the appearance
of the vicar. When Mr. Santley issued
from the church, however, he passed
quickly down the gravelled walk to the
high-road. He had thrown a rapid
look towards the plantation, and had
seen the young women, but he gave no
indication of having observed them.
"Why, Charles is not coming!" ex-
claimed Miss Santley, with surprise, as
she saw her brother ; " he surely cannot
be going down to Omberley again."
" He is not going to Omberley, dear,"
said Edith, who had been watching for
the vicar, and had been keen enough
to notice the hasty glance he had cast
in their direction ; " he is going up the
road."
" Then wherever can he be going
40 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
to ? And he had not had tea yet, poor
fellow ! "
Miss Santley stepped a few paces
back into the churchyard, and stood on
tiptoe to catch a glimpse of him over
the hedge ; but the vicar had already
passed out of sight.
u Never mind, dear," she said to
Edith. " Shall we go in and have a little
chat by ourselves ? He may have some
sick call or other, and he is sure to
be back soon, or he would have told
me where he was going. Come, you
needn't look so sad," Miss Santley
continued, as she observed the expres-
sion of her companion's face.
" I didn't think I was looking sad,"
replied Edith, blushing.
" Oh yes, you were ; dreadfully," said
Miss Santley, laughing in a bantering
manner.
AT THE VICARAGE. 41
" You don't think Mr. Santley is — is
not quite well ? " asked Edith, timidly.
" Oh no ; Charles is quite well, I am
sure."
" Perhaps he is displeased with some-
thing," said Edith, as if speaking to
herself rather than to Miss Santley.
" What a little fidget you are ! " said
her companion, taking the girl's arm.
" I know what you are thinking of. I
am sure he has no cause to be displeased
with 'you, at any rate."
" I hope not," replied Miss Dove,
brightening a little. " Only I felt a
misgiving. You do feel misgivings about
all sorts of things, dpn't you, Mary,
without knowing why — a sort of pre-
sentiment and an uneasy feeling that
something is going to happen ? "
" Young people in love, I believe,
experience feelings of that kind," said
42 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
Miss Santley, with mock gravity,
" Come in, you dear little goose, and
don't vex your poor wee heart like that.
He will be back before we have got
half our talk over."
The vicar strode rapidly along the
road until he reached the summit of a
rising ground, from which he could see
two counties spread out before him in
fruitful undulations of field and meadow
and woodland. The sunset was burning
down in front of him. Far away in the
distant landscape were soft mists of blue
smoke rising from half-hidden villages,
and here and there flashed points of
brightness where the sun struck on the
windows of a farmstead. On either hand
were great expanses of yellowing corn
swaying in the cool breeze and red-
dening in the low crimson light. He
left the road, and passed through a gate
AT THE VICARAGE. 43
into one of the fields. Following a
footpath, he went along the hedge till he
reached a stile. Here he was alone and
concealed in a vast sea of rustling corn.
He sat down on the top of the stile, and
resting his elbows on his knees and his.
chin in his hands, gazed abstractedly into
the glowing west.
A single word which escaped him
betrayed the workings of his mind :
"Married!"
Seven years ago, when Charles
Santley began his struggle in life, he
obtained through a clerical friend a
position as teacher of classics in a
seminary for young ladies in a small
sea-side town in a southern county.
He found his new labour especially
congenial. A handsome young pro-
fessor, whose attention was fixed on the
Church, and who purposed to devote
44 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
himself to her service, was cordially
welcomed by the devout ladies who
conducted the establishment. They
were three sisters who had been over-
looked in the wide yearning crowd
of unloved womanhood, and who had
turned for consolation to the mystical
passions of religion. Under their care
a bevy of bright young creatures
were brought up as in the chaste
seclusion of a convent. Their impres-
sionable natures were surrounded by a
strange artificial atmosphere of spiritual
emotion ; life shone in upon them, as it
were, through the lancets of a mediaeval
€cclesiasticism, and their young hearts,
breaking into blossom, were coloured
once and for ever with those deep
glowing tints.
It was here that the young man, in
the first dawn of the romance of man-
AT THE VICARAGE. 45
hood, met the beautiful girl who was
now the wife of the owner of Foxglove
Manor. She was then turned of seven-
teen, and had become aware of the first
shy longings and sweet impulses of her
nature. She was his favourite pupil,
and sat at his right hand at the long
table when he gave his lessons. He
used her pen and pencil, referred to her
books, touched her hand with his in the
ordinary work of the lesson. Her clothes
touched his clothes beneath the table.
At times their feet met accidentally.
She regularly put a flower in a glass of
water before his place. All these trifles
were the thrilling incidents of a delicious
romance which the school-girl was
making in her flurried little heart. He,
too, was not insensible to the trifles
which affected his passionate pupil.
Her great dark eyes sent electric flashes
46 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
through him. Her breath reached him
sweeter than roses. Her beautiful dark
hair rubbed against his shoulder or his
cheek, and he tried to prevent the hot
blood from flushing into his face. When
their hands touched he could have
snatched hers and kissed it.
Ellen Derwent was happily not a
boarder at the establishment, but resided
with her aunt. Her family were wealthy
country people, and Ellen, who had been
ailing for a little while, had been ordered
to the sea-side for change of air. Early
in the bright mornings, and after the day's
schooling was over, Ellen wandered
about the sea-shore or took long walks
along th^ cliffs. Santley met her first
by accident, and after that, though the
meetings might still be called accidental,
each knew that to-morrow and to-morrow
and yet again to-morrow the same in-
AT THE VICARAGE. 47
stinctive feeling — call it a divine chance
or love's premonition — would bring them
together.
Ah ! happy, radiant days by that glad
sea and in the wild loveliness of those
romantic cliffs ! Oh, vision of flushed cheek
and shining eyes, and sweet red lips and
throbbing bosom ! Oh, dim heavenly
summer dawns, when the sea mists were
just brightening, and the little birds
were singing, and the sea-side town was
still half asleep, and only two lovers were
walking hand in hand along the green
brow of the cliffs ! Oh, sweet autumn
twilights which the shining eyes seemed
to fill with dark burning lustre ! Oh,
kisses, sweeter than ever pressed by
woman's lips before or since ! Oh, thrill
of clasped hands and mad palpitations
of loving bosoms !
The swaying corn sounded like the
43 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
sea as the breeze passed over it, and the
murmur broke the vicar's reverie.
" Married ! "
Married ? yes, married ! The sweet
secret could not be kept for ever, and
when Miss Lilburn, Ellen's aunt, dis-
covered it, she at once spoke to Mr.
Santley. She did not oppose his suit-
indeed, she liked him greatly, but love,,
after all, was no mere school-girl's dream.
Was he' in a position to make Ellen his
wife ? In any case, they must know
about it at home. If Mr. Derwent ap-
proved, she would be most happy that
Mr. Santley should visit her ; but, in
the meantime, it was only prudent that
Ellen should discontinue these pleasant
rambles.
He had never seen Ellen since, until
her face made his heart stand still in the
midst of his sermon.
AT THE VICARAGE. 49
The vicar rose from the stile with
clenched hands and set teeth.
" Bitter, bitter ! " he said, raising his
face to the sky and shaking his head as
though he saw above him an invisible
face, and spoke half in exquisite pain,
.half in stoical endurance.
50 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
CHAPTER III.
" THERE IS A CHANGE ! "
WHEN Edith and Miss Santley reached
the Vicarage, they went into the parlour,,
which, besides having a western ex-
posure, commanded to a considerable
distance a view of the high-road along
which the vicar had passed.
" I always think this is the pleasantest
room in the house," said Miss Santley,
as she drew an armchair into the recess
of the open window, and Edith seated
herself on the couch. " Charles prefers
an eastern frontage, for the sake of the
early morning, he says ; but I am always.
•' THERE IS A CHANGE!" 51
busy in the morning, so I suppose I like
the afternoon light best, when I have
a little time to sit and bask."
" Isn't it natural, too,"' suggested
Edith, " that men should prefer sunrise
and women sunset ? Men are so active
and sanguine, and have so many in-
terests to engage their attention, and
women — well, as a rule — are such
dreamers ! Is it not almost consti-
tutional ? "
" And when did you ever see me
dreaming, may I ask ? " inquired Miss
Santley.
" Oh no ; you are not one of the
dreamers," replied Edith, quickly. " You
should have been called Martha instead
of Mary."
" Insinuating that I am a bit of a
busybody, eh ? " said Miss Santley,
with a sly twinkle of humour.
52 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" You know I did not mean to in-
sinuate that''
" Or that you had yourself chosen the
better part, eh ? " she continued gaily.
Edith coloured deeply, and cast her
eyes on the floor, while an expression
of pain passed across her face.
"Nay, my dear, do not look hurt.
You know that was only said in jest."
" You cannot tell how such jests hurt
me," replied the girl, her lips beginning
to tremble.
" Even between our two selves ? "
asked Miss Santley, taking Edith's hand
gently and stroking it with both of hers.
"You know, my dear little girl, how
I love you, and how pleased I was
when I discovered the way in which
that poor little heart of yours was
beating. You know that there is no
one in the world whom I would more
"THERE IS A CHANGE!" 53
gladly — ay, or a thousandth part so
gladly — take for a sister. Don't you,
Edith ? Answer me, dear."
" Yes," replied the girl, letting her
head hang upon her bosom, and feeling
her face on flame.
" And have I not tried to help you ?
I know Charles is fond of you — I am
sure of that. I have eyes in my head,
my dear, though they are not so young
and pretty as yours. And I know, too,
that a little while ago he was anxious
to know what I would say if he should
propose to take a wife. I shall be only
too pleased when he makes up his mind.
It will relieve me of a great deal of
care and anxiety. And he could not
in the wide world choose a better or
a dearer little girl."
Miss Santley was not ordinarily of
a demonstrative disposition, but as she
54 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
uttered those last words she drew Edith
towards her and kissed her on the fore-
head.
The vicar's sister was some twelve
years his senior. A stout, homely,
motherly little woman, with plain but
pleasing features, brown hair, a shrewd
but kindly expression, clear grey eyes,
and a firm mouth and chin, she was as
unlike the Vicar in personal appearance
as she was unlike him in character and
temperament. This family unlikeness,
however, had had no prejudicial effect
on their mutual affection, though in Miss
Santley's case it was the source of much
secret uneasiness on her brother's ac-
count. As unimaginative as she was
practical, she was at a loss to understand
her brother's emotional mysticism and
dreamy idealism ; but her knowledge of
human nature made her timorously
"THERE IS A CHANGE!" 55
aware of the clangers which beset the
combination of a splendid physique with
a glowing temperament which was
almost febrile in its sensuous impulsive-
ness. She was spared the torture of
sharing that darker secret of unbelief;
but she was sufficiently conscious of the
strong fervid nature of trie vicar, to feel
thankful that Edith had made a deep
impression on him, and that when he
did marry it would be a bright and
congenial young creature who would be
worthy of him and attached to herself.
" So why should it hurt you, if I do
jest a little ? " asked Miss Santley, as
she kissed Edith. " Love cannot always
be transcendental, otherwise two people
will never come closely together. The
best gift a couple of lovers can possess
in common, is a capacity for a little
fun and affectionate wit. Your solemn
56 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
lovers are always misunderstanding each
other, and quarrelling and making it up
again."
" But we are not lovers yet, Mary,"
said Edith in a timid whisper.
" Not yet, perhaps ; but you will be
soon, if I am capable of forming any
opinion."
" I don't know, I don't know," Edith
replied with a sigh ; and her soft blue
eyes filled with tears. Then raising her
eyes imploringly to Miss Santley, and
nervously taking her hand, she con-
tinued : " Oh, Mary, do not think me
too forward and eager and unwomanly.
Do not judge me too hardly. I know
a girl should not give her heart away
till she is asked for it. But I cannot
help it — I love him — I love him so ! I
have done all I could to prevent myself
from loving him, but it is no use — oh!
it is no use."
"THERE IS A CHANGE!" 57
She burst into a paroxysm of passion-
ate sobbing, and Miss Santley, without
saying a word, put her arms about her
and softly caressed her soft flaxen hair.
The outburst was gradually subdued,
and Edith, with a hot glowing face hid-
den on her friend's shoulder, was too
ashamed to change her position.
" Do you feel better now, dear ? "
asked Miss Santley in a kindly voice.
" Oh, Mary, are you not ashamed of
me — disgusted ? "
Miss Santley replied in a woman's
way with another kiss, and again fondled
the girl's head.
After a pause of a few moments, she,
gently raised her face and regarded it
affectionately.
" You must come upstairs and wash
away those tell-tales before he returns.
And " —she added a little hesitatingly —
5 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
41 will you not trust me with the cause of
all this trouble ? "
" I am afraid you will laugh at me,
dear, it must seem such a foolish cause
to you. And I know you will say it
was all simply my fancy/'
" What was it ? "
"You know, dear, where I sit in
church?" Edith began, nervously playing
with the lace on Miss Santley's dress.
41 Well, he always used to turn twice or
thrice in my direction during the sermon.
I used to think he did it because he
knew I was there. And he did it this
afternoon. But in the evening he never
looked once during the whole time."
Miss Santley began to smile in spite
of herself.
" Then when he came out of the
church he saw you and me waiting for
him — I saw him give one single sharp
"THERE IS A CHANGE!" 59
look — and then he went on as if he had
not perceived us. He would not have
gone away like that, Mary, if I had not
been with you."
" And is that all ? " inquired Mary as
Edith paused.
" I think it is quite enough," the
latter replied sorrowfully. "It means
that he is tired of me ; he was dis-
pleased that I was with you ; he did not
want to speak to me."
" My dear girl, all this is simply silly
fancy ; you will make your whole life
miserable if you imagine things in this
way."
" I knew you would say that ; but you
do not understand. I hardly under-
stand myself; but I know what I say is
true. You remember old Harry Wilson
down in the village — he has a wooden
leg, you know, but when there is going
60 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
to be a bad change of weather, he says
he can feel it in the foot he has lost ;
and he is always right. I think I am
like him, dear ; I have lost something,
and it makes me feel when there is a
change, long before the storm breaks."
" All this is nothing but nonsense, my
little woman ! " said Miss Santley re-
assuringly. " Come with me upstairs,
and let us make ourselves presentable."
When Edith had bathed her face, the
two came downstairs again, but instead
of returning to the parlour they went
into the library. This was specially the
vicar's room, and, more than any other,
it indicated the tastes and character of
its occupant. The whole house, indeed,
was tinged with the mediaeval colouring
of the church, and in all parts of it you
came upon indications of the ecclesias-
tical spirit of the owner ; but here the
" THERE IS A CHANGE > " 6 1
vicar had given fullest expression to his
fancy, and the room had as much the
appearance of an oratory as of a library.
At one end a small alcove jutted out
into the plantation, and the windows
were filled with stained glass. On
the walls hung several of Raphael's
cartoons ; on the mantelpiece stood,
under glass, a marble group of The
Dead Christ ; the furniture, which was
of carved oak, suggested the stalls in
the chancel ; the brass gasalier and
brackets were of ecclesiastical design ;
and, lastly, the library shelves were
solemnly weighted with long rows of
theology, sermons, and Biblical literature
in several languages. In a separate
bookcase, which was kept locked, were
gathered together a number of scientific
works and volumes of modern specu-
lative philosophy. A third bookcase
62 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
was devoted to history, poetry, travels,
and miscellaneous works. The great
bulk of the library, however, was clerical,
and the vicar had within arm's reach a
fair epitome of all that the good men
of all ages and many countries had
discovered regarding the mystery of the
world and the relationship of man.
In one corner of the room stood a tall
richly carved triangular cupboard of
black oak, and it too, like the bookcase
of science, was kept perpetually locked.
As Edith entered the room her eyes
fell upon it, and turning to her com-
panion she asked —
" Oh, Mary, have you discovered the
skeleton yet ? "
" No," replied Miss Santley, with a
laugh. " Charles is forgetful enough in
some things, but he has never yet left
the key in that lock. I once asked him
"THERE IS A CHANGE!" 63
what it was he concealed so carefully,
but he refused to satisfy my curiosity ; so
I resolved to trust to chance and his
carelessness. I have waited so long,
however, that my curiosity has at last
been tired out. I don't suppose, after all
it is anything worth knowing."
" And why does he always keep this
bookcase locked too ? The books all
look so fresh and new, and they are
much more attractive than those dusty
old fellows any one can look into. I
should like to read several of those, one
hears so much about them. There is
Darwin, ' The Descent of Man ' — I
have read articles about that book in
the magazines, and I know he believes j
Adam and Eve were apes in Paradise y
or something like that."
" Oh, my dear, Charles would never
allow you to read those books on any
4 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
account. They are all dreadfully wicked
and blasphemous. He only reads them
himself to refute them and to be able
to show how false and dangerous they
are."
Edith, who had approached the
window, now suddenly started back, and
a bright flush rose to her face.
" Here is Mr. Santley, Mary ! How
pale and wearied he looks ! "
A moment or two later the vicar
entered the library. At the sight of
Miss Dove he paused for an instant, and
then advancing, held out his hand to
her.
"You here, Miss Edith!" he said
coldly. " How are you, and how is your
aunt ? "
He did not wait for an answer, but
went to his writing-table and sat down.
The two women exchanged glances of
"THERE IS A CHANGE!" 65
surprise, and Edith's face grew sad and
white.
" Are you not well, Charles ? " his
sister asked, going up to him and look-
ing solicitously into his face.
" I am not very well this evening,"
replied the vicar ; " it is the weather, I
think. If Miss Edith will excuse me,
I think I will leave you and lie down. I
feel tired/'
He rose again abruptly, and Edith
stood regarding him with large, wistful
eyes. He moved towards the door, and
then suddenly stopped and turned to
her.
" Good evening," he said once more,
holding out his hand and speaking in a
cold, distant manner. " Present my com-
pliments to your aunt."
" I hope you will be well in the morn-
ing," said Edith, timidly.
VOL. I. F
66 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" Thanks. Yes ; I expect I shall be
all right again after a little rest."
He turned and left her, and Miss
Santley, glancing at her significantly,
followed him to his room.
" He has over-exerted himself to-day,"
said Mary a little later, as she accom-
panied Miss Dove to the garden gate.
" He had a sick call in the afternoon,
and was unable to take his usual rest.
You will excuse my not accompanying
you home, will you not ? "
" Oh certainly," said Edith. " I hope
it is nothing serious. Would you not
like to see Dr. Spruce ? I can call, you
know."
" He says he does not need the
doctor ; he knows what is the matter
with him, and only requires rest. Good
night, dear ! I am so sorry I cannot go
part of the way with you."
"THERE IS A CHANGE :r 67
" Do not think of that," said Edith,
shaking hands. " It is not late, and you
must not leave him."
The sunset had lowered down to its
last red embers, but it was still quite
light as Edith turned away from the
Vicarage gate. She proceeded slowly
down the road towards the village for
a few moments, and then paused and
looked back. No one was on the road.
Retracing her steps, she passed the
Vicarage at a quick pace, and took the
direction which the vicar had taken an
hour before. Strangely enough, she
stopped at the top of the rising ground
where he had stopped ; went through
the same gate, into the same field, and,
following the same path, reached the
stile on which he had sat. Here she
sat down, with the great sea of corn
whispering and murmuring about her,
68 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
and the distant landscape growing
gradually more and more indistinct in
the bluish vapour of the twilight. Alone
and hidden from observation, she sat
on the step with her arms on the
cross-bar of the stile and her head laid
on them, weeping bitterly.
" I have lost something, and it makes,
me feel when there is a change ! "
69
CHAPTER IV.
GEORGE HALDANE.
THE low-lying landscape had vanished
in the twilight, and the stars were
iwinkling in the clear blue sky before
Edith rose, dried her eyes, and began
to return homeward. The moon had
risen, but had yet scarcely freed itself
from the tops of the dark woods, through
which it shone round and ruddy. As
she passed the Vicarage, she paused
and looked up at the windows. She
felt prompted to steal quietly up to the
door and inquire whether Mr. Santley
70 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
was any better, but a fear arising from
many causes held her back. Besides,
the house was in darkness, and every
one seemed to have retired to rest.
Since Edith had been in the habit
of visiting the Vicarage, this was the
first occasion on which she had returned
home alone. Unreasonable as she ac-
knowledged the suspicion to be, she
could not rid herself of the belief that
Mr. Santley's indisposition had been,
assumed as an excuse for avoiding her.
She strove to convince herself that she
was foolishly sensitive and jealous, to
hope that the change in the vicar's
manner was but an illusion of her ex-
cited fancy, to feel confident that when
she saw him to-morrow she would recog-
nize how childish she had been.
Miss Dove was exceedingly fond of
music, and during the week she was
GEORGE HALDANE.] 71
accustomed to spend hours alone in the
church, giving utterance to her thoughts
and feelings in dreamy voluntaries,
which were the fugitive inspiration of
the moment, or filling the cool, richly
lighted aisles with the impassioned
strains of Mozart, Haydn, and Men-
delssohn. The sound of the organ could
be heard at the Vicarage, and Mr.
Santley had been in the habit of going
into the church, and conversing with her
while she played. It was with the hope
that one of his favourite pieces would
again bring him to her that, during the
afternoon of the following day, Edith
took her seat at the organ. With
nervous, eager fingers she swept the
key-board, and sent her troubled heart
into the yearning anguish and clamorous
impetration of the Agnus Dei of
Haydn's No. 2. When she had finished
72 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
she rested for a little, and glanced ex-
pectantly down the aisle ; but no foot-
step disturbed the quiet of the place.
She then turned to another of the vicar's
favourites — a Gloria of Mozart's. The
volumes of throbbing sound vibrated
through the stained windows, and floated
across the bright churchyard to the
Vicarage ; but Edith's hope was not
realized. She played till she felt wearied,
rather with the hopelessness of her task
than with the physical exertion ; but the
schoolboy who blew the organ for her
was exhausted, and when she saw how
red and hot he looked, she closed the
instrument and dismissed him. Every
day that week she repeated her ex-
periment, but her music had apparently
lost its magical influence. The vicar
never came. She called thrice to see
Miss Santley, but each time he was away
GEORGE HALDANE. 73
from home. Once she saw him in the
village, and her heart began to beat
violently as he approached ; but they
were on different sides of the street,
and instead of crossing over to her, as
he had always done hitherto, he merely
smiled, raised his hat, and passed on.
Sunday came round at length, and she
looked forward with a sad, painful
wonder to the customary visit in the
evening.
It was a bright, breezy sabbath
morning, and the great limes and syca-
mores which buried Foxglove Manor
in a wilderness of billowy verdure, rolled
gladsomely in the sun, and filled the
world with a vast seal ike susurrus. On
the stone terrace which ran along the
front of the mansion the master of the
Manor was lounging, with a cigar in
his mouth, and a huge deer-hound basking
74 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
at his feet ; while in the shadow of the
room his wife stood at an open French
window, conversing with him.
Mr. Haldane was a tall, broad-
shouldered, powerful man of about forty
years of age. His face, especially in
repose, was by no means handsome. His
grave, large, strongly marked features
expressed decision, daring, and indomit-
able force. His forehead was broad, and
deeply marked with the perpendicular
lines of long mental labour. The poise
of his head suggested a habit of boldly
confronting an opponent. His short
hair and closely trimmed beard were
touched with gray, and gave a certain
keenness and frostiness to his appearance.
A grim, self-sufficing, iron-natured man,
one would have said, until one had
looked into his bright blue-gray eyes,
which lit up his strong, rugged face with
GEORGE HALDANE. 75
an expression of frankness and dry
humour.
" My dear Nell," he said at length, in
answer to the persistent persuasion of
his wife, " do not be cross. There are
two things in the world which I abhor
beyond all others : a damp church and
a dry sermon. Invite your vicar as
often as you please. I will do my best
to entertain him ; but do not press me
to sit out an interminable farrago of
irritating platitudes in a chilly, straight-
backed pew."
" I assure you, George, you will be
charmed with him, if you will only let
me prevail on you to come."
" Why cannot you Christians dispense
with incense, and allow smoking instead
— at least during the sermon ? "
Mrs. Haldane made a little grimace of
horror.
76 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" You would then have whole burnt
offerings dedicated with a devout and
cheerful heart."
" George, you are shockingly profane !
I see it is no use urging you any further ;
but I did think you would have put
yourself to even some little incon-
venience for my sake.''
"For your sake, Nell!" replied Mr.
Haldane, laughing. " Why did you not
say so sooner ? You know I would do
anything on those terms. Have I not
often told you the married philosopher
has but one moral law — to do his wife's
will in all things."
" Then you will accompany me ? "
" Certainly I will."
" You are a dear, good old bear," ex-
claimed Mrs. Halclane, slipping on to
the terrace and caressing his head with
both hands. " But you know you arc a
GEORGE HALDANE. 77
bear, and you will try for once to be nice
and good-natured, will you not ? And
you will not be cold and cynical with
him because he is ideal and enthusiastic ?
And if you do not acknowledge that he
is a delightful preacher, and that the
dear little church is charming "
" You will not ask me to go again ? "
'* I was going to say that, but it will
be wiser to make no promises. You
know, dear, you should go to church, if
it were only for the sake of giving a
good example ; and it is my duty to try
and persuade you to go. And oh, George,
seriously I do wish you could feel that it
drew you nearer to God ; that where two
or three are gathered together, He is in
the midst of them. Now, do not smile
in that hard, derisive way. I know I
cannot argue with you, but if I cannot
reply to your reasoning, you cannot con-
7 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
vince my heart. I do believe, in spite
of all logic, that I have a heavenly
Father who loves and watches over me
and you too, dear ; and I should be
wretched "
" My dear little woman," said Mr.
Haldane, taking both her hands in one of
his, " you have no cause to be wretched.
I have no wish to deprive you of your
belief in a heavenly Father. With
women the illusions of the heart last
longer than with men ; and perhaps, in
these days of change and innovation, it
is as well that women have still a creed
to find comfort in. For my part, I con-
fess I hardly understand what it is
attracts you in your religion. The
civilized world, so far as I can see, has
outgrown the golden age of worship, and
latria is one of the lost arts."
The presence of the master of Fox-
- GEORGE HALDANE. 79
glove Manor created considerable sur-
prise and curiosity among the congrega-
tion at St. Cuthbert's. Though he had
lived in the neighbourhood for the last
twelve years, this was the first time he
had been seen inside a church. Much
more attention was paid during the ser-
vice to the beautiful lady of the Manor,
and the grim, powerful man who sat
beside her, than was in keeping with the
sacred character of the occasion. Mr.
Haldane, on his part, though he did his
best by imitating the example of his wife
to conform to the ritual, was keenly
critical of the whole service. The dim
religious light of the painted windows
pleased his eye, but failed to exercise
any influence on his feelings. The
decorations of the church seemed to
him insincere and artificial. He missed
in the atmosphere that sense of reverence
80 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
which he had experienced in the old
cathedrals in Spain and Italy. The
ceremonies appeared dry, joyless, and
uninteresting, and as he watched the
congregation bowing, kneeling, praying,
singing, pageants of the jubilant mythic
worship of the ancient world crowded
upon his imagination.
" What are you thinking of ? " his wife
once whispered, as she caught a sidelong
glance at his abstracted face.
" Diana at Ephesus ! " he replied, with
a curious twinkle in his keen gray eyes.
Once or twice during the sermon a
saturnine smile passed across his face,
and Mrs. Haldane pressed his foot by
way of warning ; but otherwise he listened
gravely throughout, with his large,
strongly marked features turned to the
preacher.
"Well, have you been interested,
GEORGE HALDANE. 8 1
clear ? " asked Mrs. Haldane, when the
service was over, and they were waiting-
in the churchyard for the vicar.
" Yes," he replied drily ; " your vicar
is interesting."
" Now, what do you mean by that ? "
" He will repay study, my dear."
Mrs. Haldane looked sharply into her
husband's face, but was dissatisfied with
her scrutiny.
" You don't like him ? "
" I have no reason yet to like or dis-
like him. In a general way, I should
prefer to say that I do like him."
<( But what do you mean by your
remark that he will repay study ? "
" Perhaps you will not understand
me," he answered thoughtfully. "Your
vicar has a soul, Nell."
" So have we all, I suppose."
"At least he believes he has one/'
VOL. I. G
2 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
said Mr. Haldane, with a slight shrug of
his shoulders.
" Well ! "
" And he is trying to save it."
" We all are, I hope."
" I beg your pardon, Nell ; the pheno-
menon in these days is a psychological
rarity, and, being rare, is naturally
interesting. It is one of the obscure
problems of cerebration. Ah ! here
comes your vicar."
With a bright smile Mrs. Haldane
advanced to meet him, and cordially
shook hands with him. " You must
allow me to introduce you to my hus-
band. George, Mr. Santley."
" My wife tells me," said Mr. Haldane,
as they shook hands, " that she was an
old pupil of yours."
" Yes," said the vicar, with an uneasy
glance towards her, " many years ago."
GEORGE HALDANE. 83
" It is a little curious," continued
Mr. Haldane, " how people lose sight
of each other for years, and then are
unexpectedly thrown together into the
same small social circle, after they have
quite forgotten each other's existence,"
The vicar winced at the last words,
but replied with a faint smile, "The
great world is, after all, a very little
world."
"Ah, my dear sir, I see I have started
a familiar train of thought — the littleness
of the world," said Mr. Haldane, with a
dry light in his eyes.
" And you fear I may improve the
occasion ? " asked the vicar a little
coldly.
" Pray do not misunderstand my
husband," interposed Mrs. Haldane.
"He was delighted with your sermon
to-day ; and I do not wonder, for you
84 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
have the power of appealing to the
heart and raising the mind beyond
earthly things. It was only a few
moments ago that he told me he was
deeply interested."
" I perceived that he was amused
once or twice," replied the vicar, with
a smile.
" I confess that I may have smiled at
one or two points in your discourse."
" Excuse my interrupting you," said
Mrs, Haldane ; "will you not walk?
You can spare time to accompany us
a little way ? "
Mr. Santley bowed, and Mrs. Haldane
signed to the coachman to drive on
slowly towards the village.
" For example," resumed Mr. Hal-
dane, " I see you still stick to the old
chronology and the mythic Eden."
" Certainly I do."
GEORGE HALDANE. «5
" And yet you should be aware that
at least a thousand years before the date
you fix for the creation of Adam, tribes
of savage hunters and fishers peopled
the old fir-woods of Denmark, and set
their nets in the German Ocean."
"It may eventually prove necessary
to revise the chronology of the Bible,"
replied the vicar ; " but there is at
present too much conflict of opinion
among your archaeologists to decide on
the absolute age of these tribes. After
all, the question is one of minor import-
ance."
" Granted. But you cannot say the
same of the efficacy of prayer."
Mrs. Haldane laid her hand on her
husband's arm, and stopped abruptly.
' " Ask Mr. Santley to dinner, George,
and then you can discuss as long and
as profoundly as you like ; but I will
86 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
not allow you to argue now. Besides,
/ want to talk to Mr. Santley."
Mr. Haldane laughed good-naturedly.
" Just as you please, my dear. If
Mr. Santley will favour us with his
company, I shall be very glad. Your
predecessor was a frequent visitor at
our house. A jovial, rubicund fellow,
whose troubles in this life were less of
the world and the devil than of the
flesh ! A fat, ponderous man and a
Tory, as all fat men are ; a sort of
Falstaff in pontificalibiis ; a man with
a wit and a shrewd palate for old port.
Poor fellow ! he was snuffed out like
a candle. One could have better spared
a better man."
" Will you come to-morrow ? " asked
Mrs. Haldane ; " and, if your sister can
accompany you, will you bring her ?
You will excuse our informality and so
short a notice."
GEORGE HALDANE. 87
" I shall be very happy to call to-
morrow."
" Then, if you can spare me a few
moments I will have a better oppor-
tunity of speaking- to you. I must learn
all about the parish, and I have a whole
catechism of questions to ask you. You
will come to-morrow, then ?" she con-
cluded, with one of those flashing looks
from her great dark eyes.
He watched them drive away with
that look burning in his brain and the
pressure of her hand tingling through
every nerve. He stood gazing after
her with a passionate light in his eyes
and an eager, yearning expression on
his pale, agitated face. This was the
woman he had lost, and now they were
again thrown together in the same small
social circle, after she had completely
forgotten his existence ! Those words
o8 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
of her husband had cut him to the
quick. Could she so soon, so easily,
so completely have forgotten him ? It
seemed incredible. If she had used
any such expression to her husband,
was it not rather to forestall any jealous
suspicion on his part ? Clearly she had
not divulged the secret of those school-
girl days. He knew not the story of
that sweet, imperishable romance ; those
burning kisses and unforgotten vows
had been hidden from him ; and in that
concealment the vicar found a strange,
subtle pleasure. It was at least one tie
between him and her ; one secret in
common in which her husband had no
share.
CHAPTER V.
THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD.
THE vicar was standing close beside the
village school, and as he turned to go
back home he saw the schoolmistress in
the doorway of her little cottage. He
started as though she had been looking
into his heart, instead of watching the
carnage as it bowled along towards the
village. Without a moment's hesitation,
however, he opened the schoolyard gate
and went up to her.
" Well, Miss Greatheart, how are you
to-day ? "
Dora, a bright, merry-looking woman
90 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
of about thirty, dropped a curtsy, and
invited the vicar into the house.
" Thank you, no ; I must not stay. I
have just been speaking, as you have
seen, to my new parishioners. I call
them new, though I suppose they are
older in the parish than I am myself."
" Old as they are, this is the first time
I ever set eyes on Mr. Haldane in our
/ church, sir. His pretty wife must have
converted him."
" Then they have not been long
married ? "
" Somewhere about two years, I
should think. All last year they were
away in Egypt and Palestine ; and per-
haps now that he's seen the Land, he
believes in the Book."
" Indeed ! "
" Seeing' s believing, you know, sir; and
if all tales be true, he used not to believe
THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD. 91
in anything from the roof upward. Oh,
you may well look shocked, sir, but he
was quite an atheist and an infidel ; but
you see he was so rich that the gentry
round about didn't care to give him the
go-by. I suppose you haven't been to
the Manor yet, sir ? The old vicar, Mr.
Hart, was always there. People did say
he paid more court to the people at the
Manor than he should have done, con-
sidering the need for him in the parish ;
and when Mr. Hart got his second
stroke, there were those that said it was
a judgment on him for high living, and
the company he kept. But you know,
sir, how folks' tongues will wag."
" Is the Manor far from here ? Of
course I have heard of the place, but I
have never been near it."
" It's about four miles, sir, and a lonely
place it is, and dismal it must be in
92 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
winter, with miles of wood about it. In
sumrner it is not so bad, but it is awfully
wild and solitary. I went over the
grounds once, years ago. I became
acquainted with one of the housemaids,
you see, sir — quite a nice young person—
and she invited me to tea. I remember
it was getting dusk when I left, and she
took me through the woods. Dear me,
what a fright I got ! I happened to look
up, and there was a man, quite a giant,
standing among the trees. I screamed,
and would have run had not Jane — that
was the maid, sir — laughed, and said it
was only a statue. And so it was, for
we went right up to it. All the woods
are full of statues — quite improper and
rude, and rather frightening to meet in
the dusk. But now he is converted,
Mrs. Haldane will have them all taken
away, I should think. I don't believe
THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD. 93
the place is haunted, though there are
some strange stones told about it ; but I
do know that the chapel — there is an
old chapel close by the house — is shut
up, and no one goes near it but Mr.
Haldane and his valet — a dark foreign
person, with such eyes ! Queer tales are
told about lights being seen in it at all
hours of the night, and some of the old
folk believe that if any one could look in
they would see that the foreign valet
had horns and a cloven foot, and that
his master was worshipping him. I
think that's all nonsense myself; but
there's no doubt Mr. Haldane used to be
dreadfully wicked, and an atheist."
"If he was so very bad," said the
vicar, smiling, " surely it was strange that
Mr. Hart used to associate with him so
much."
"Well, you see, sir, he was always-
94 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
liberal, and kept a good table, and Mr.
Hart was a cheerful liver. Then Mr.
Haldane was always ready with his
purse when there was a hard winter, or
the crops were bad, or any poor person
was ill."
" I see, I see," said the vicar.
" But his charity could not do him
any good, people said, when he didn't
believe there was a God, or that he had
a soul."
"So they didn't consider it worth
while to be thankful ? "
" I don't think they did, sir."
" And was Mrs. Haldane staying at the
Manor the first year of their marriage ? "
" Yes ; he brought her back with him
after the honeymoon."
" And do they speak as kindly of her
in the village as they do of her hus-
band ? "
THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD. 95
" Oh, indeed, sir, they worship her.
Even old Mother Grimsoll, who said she
wanted to make a charity woman of her
when you bought her that scarlet cloak
last winter, has a good word for Mrs.
Haldane. She isn't the least bit con-
ceited, and she knows that poor people
have their proper pride ; and when she
helps any one she makes them feel that
they are doing her a favour. When
Mr. Hart was alive she used to go
round with him, devising and dispensing
charities. It's only a pity she is married
to — to— -and Miss Greatheart beat
impatiently on the ground with her foot
in the effort to recall the word — " to an
agnostic. Mr. Hart said he wasn't an
atheist, but an agnostic, though I dare
say if the truth were known one is worse
than the other."
" You are not very charitable, Miss
96 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
Greatheart ; come, now, confess," said
the vicar, good-humouredly.
" Perhaps not, sir ; but I have no
patience with atheists and agnostics."
" An atheist," continued the vicar, " is-
a person who does not believe in a
God ; an agnostic is one who merely
says he does not know whether there is
a God or not."
" Doesn't know ! " exclaimed Dora,,
indignantly. " Wherever was the man
brought up ? "
That evening, as Miss Santley and
Edith went across from the church to
the Vicarage together, the vicar joined
them, and Miss Dove remained to
supper as usual. The time passed
pleasantly enough ; but Edith was con-
scious of a certain restraint in the con-
versation, a curious chilliness in the
atmosphere. When at length she rose
THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD. 97
to go home, the vicar went to the
window, and looked out for a few
seconds.
"-I think, Mary, you might accom-
pany us ; and when we have seen Miss
Edith home, we could take a turn round
together. It is a beautiful night."
Mary nodded assent, and Edith felt
her heart sink within her. She was
certain now that he was avoiding her.
As she followed Miss Santley upstairs
to put on her things, a sudden thought
flashed upon her.
" I shall be with you in a moment,
Mary," she said ; " I have dropped my
handkerchief, I think."
She ran back to the parlour, and met
the vicar face to face as he paced the
room.
She stood still, and looked at him
silently for a moment. She had taken
VOL. I. H
98 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
him by surprise, and he too stood
motionless.
"Well," he said at last, with a faint
smile.
" Do you hate me, Charles ? " she
asked in a low, steady voice.
" Hate you ! Why should I hate
you, my dear Edith ? What should put
such thoughts "
" I have only a few seconds to speak
to you," Miss Dove continued hastily.
" Answer me truly and directly. You
do not hate me ? "
" I shall never hate you, dear."
<" Why do you avoid me ? "
" Have I avoided you ? "
" You know you have. Why ? "
" I have not avoided you, Edith."
" Do you still love me ? "
" You know I do."
" As much as ever you did ? "
THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD. 99
" As much as ever."
" Can I see you to-morrow — alone ? "
"You know I am going to the
Manor."
" I know," said Edith, with a slight
tone of bitterness. " You will return
in the evening, I suppose ? I shall wait
for you on the road till nine o'clock."
" I may be detained, you know,
Edith."
" Then I shall be practising in the
church on Tuesday afternoon as usual."
" Very well," he assented.
"Am I still to trust you, Charles?"
she asked, raising her soft blue eyes
earnestly to his face.
" Yes."
" Yes ? " She dwelt upon the word,
still looking fondly up to him. He
understood her, and bent over and
kissed her.
100 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" You will try to return home to-
morrow before nine ? I have been
miserable all this week, and I have so
much to say to you."
" I will try to see you," said the vicar.
" I must run now ; Mary will wonder
what has kept me."
The great woods about Foxglove
Manor were certainly lovely, and in the
winter, with the snow on their black
branches, and snow on the fallen leaves
and the open spaces between the clump^
of forestry, the place might have seemed
dreary and dismal ; but on this July
afternoon the vicar experienced an in-
describable sense of buoyancy and en-
largement among these vast tossing
masses of foliage. Their incessant
murmur filled the air with an inarticulate
music, which recalled to his memory the
singing pines of Theocritus and the voices
THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD. IOI
of the firs of the Hebrew prophets. A
spirit of romance for ever haunts the
woodland, as though the olden traditions
of dryad and sylvan maiden had not yet
been wholly superseded by the more
accurate report of science. In the skirts
of the great clusters of timber, cattle
were grazing in groups of white and
red ; in the open spaces of pasture land
between wood and wood, deer were
visible among the patches of bracken.
In the depths of the forest ways he
came upon the colossal statues copied
from the old masters ; and at length, at
a turn of the shadowy road, he found
himself in view of the mansion — an
ancient, square mass of brown sandstone,
stained with weather and incrustations
of moss and lichens, and covered all
along the southern exposure with a
dense growth of ivy. The grounds
102 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
immediately in front were laid out in
formal plots for flowers and breadths
of turf traversed by gravelled pathways.
A little withdrawn from the house stood
the ruined chapel of which the school-
mistress had spoken. The ivy had
invaded it, and scaled every wall to the
very eaves, while patches of stonecrop
and houseleek, which had established
themselves on the slated roof, gave it a
singular aspect of complete abandon-
ment.
As Mr. Santley entered one of the
walks which led to the terraced entrance,
Mrs. Haldane, who had observed his
approach, appeared on the stone steps,
and descended to meet him.
" How good of you to come so early !"
she exclaimed. " George will be de-
lighted. He is in his laboratory, ex-
perimenting as usual. We shall join
THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD'. 103
him, after you have had some refresh-
ment."
"No refreshment for me, thank you."
" Are you quite sure ? You must
require something after so long a walk."
" Nothing really, I assure you."
" Well, I shall not press you, as we
shall have dinner soon. Shall we go
to Mr. Haldane ? Have you visited
the Manor before — not in our absence ?
How do you like it ? "
" I envy you" your magnificent woods.
" Yes ; are they not charming ? And
you will like the house, too, when you
have seen it."
" Do you not find it dull, however ? "
asked the vicar, looking into her face
with an expression of keen scrutiny.
" You are still young — in the blossom
of your youth — and society must still
have its attractions for you."
104 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" One enjoys society all the more after
a little seclusion."
" No doubt."
"And we have just returned, you
must recollect, from a whole year of
wandering and sight-seeing, so that it is
a positive relief to awaken morning after
morning and find the same peaceful
landscape, the same quiet woods about
one."
" That is very natural ; but the heart
does not long remain content with the
unchanging face of nature, however
beautiful it may be. Even the best
and strongest require sympathy, and
when once we become conscious of that
want—
" Have you begun to feel it ? " she
asked suddenly, as he paused.
" I suppose it is the inevitable ex-
perience of a clergyman in a country
parish," he replied, with a smile.
THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD. 1 05
" Yes, I suppose it is. So few can
take an interest in your tastes, and
aspirations, and intellectual pleasures,
and pursuits. Is not that so ? "
" It may seem vanity to think so."
" Oh no ; I think not. The people
you meet every day are mostly con-
cerned in their turnips or the wheat or
their cattle, and their talk is the merest
village gossip. It must indeed be very
depressing to listen day after day to
nothing but that. One has, of course,
a refuge in books."
" But books are not life. The day-
dreams of the library are a poor sub-
stitute for the real action of a man's
own heart and brain."
" Then one has also the great fields
of natural science to explore. I think
you will find the work of my husband
interesting, and if you could turn your
106 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
mind in the same direction, you would
find in him inexhaustible sympathy."
As she spoke, they reached the low-
arched portal of the chapel. The thick
oaken door, studded with big iron nails,
was open, and before them stood a man
who bowed profoundly to Mrs. Haldane,
and then darted a swift, penetrating
glance at the vicar.
"Mr. Haldane is within, Baptisto ? "
she asked.
" Yes, senora."
He stood aside to allow them to pass,
and as Mr. Santley entered he regarded
the man with an eye which photo-
graphed every feature of his dark
Spanish face. It was a face which,
once seen, stamped itself in haunting
lineaments on the memory. A dusky
olive complexion ; a fierce, handsome
mouth and chin ; a broad, intelligent
THE LAMB AND THE, SHEPHERD. IO7
forehead ; short, crisp black hair
sprinkled with grey ; a thin, black
moustache, twisted and pointed at the
ends ; and a pair of big, black, unfathom-
able eyes, filled with liquid fire. It
was the man's eyes that arrested the
attention first, gave character not only
to the face but to the man himself, and
indeed served to identify him. In the
village, " the foreign gentleman with the
eyes" was the popular and sufficient
description of Baptisto.
108 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
CHAPTER VI.
THE UNKNOWN GOD.
As the vicar entered the chapel, he
stopped short, struck with astonishment
at the singular appearance of the interior.
The sunlight streaming through the
leaded diamond panes of the casements,
instead of falling on the familiar pews,
flagged nave, and solemn walls, shone
with a startling effect on the hetero-
geneous contents of a museum and
laboratory. Along one side of the
building were ranged several glass cases
containing collections of fossils, arctic and
tropical shells, antique implements of
THE UNKNOWN GOD. 1 09
flint, stone, and bronze, and geological
specimens. The walls were decorated
with savage curiosities — shields of skin,
carved clubs and paddles, spears and
arrows tipped with flint or fishbone,
mats of grass, strings of wampum, and
dresses of skins and feathers. On a
couple of small shelves grinned two
rows of hideous crania, gathered as
ethnic types from all quarters of the
barbarian world, and beside them lay
a plaster cast of a famous paleolithic
skull. On the various stands and tables
in different parts of the room were
retorts and crucibles, curious tubes,
glasses and flasks, electric jars and
batteries, balances, microscopes, prisms,
strange instruments of brass and glass,
and a bewildering litter of odds and
ends, for which only a student of science
could find a name or a use. At the
HO FOXGLOVE MANOR.
further end of the room, under the
coloured east window, stood an escritoire
covered with a confused mass of paper,
and beside it stood a small table piled
with books.
As Mrs. Haldane and the vicar
entered, the master of Foxglove Manor,
who had been writing, rose, laid down
his pipe, buttoned his old velvet shoot-
ing-jacket, and hastened forward to
welcome his visitor.
Baptisto gravely set a couple of chairs,
and, at a sign from his master, bowed
profoundly, and retired to the further
end of the apartment.
" Do you smoke, Mr. Santley ? "
Mr. Haldane asked, glancing at a box of
new clay pipes.
" No, thank you ; but I do not dislike
the smell of tobacco. I find, however,
that smoking disagrees with me — irri-
THE UNKNOWN GOD. Ill
tates instead of soothing, as professors
of the weed tell me it should do."
" Touches the solar plexus, eh ?
Then beware of it ! The value of the
solar system is often determined by
the condition of the solar plexus."
" That does seem to be frequently the
case," replied Mr. Santley, smiling.
" Invariably, my dear sir, as the
ancients were well aware when they
formulated that comprehensive, but little
comprehended, proverb of the sound
mind in the sound body. It is curious
how frequently modern science finds
herself demonstrating the truth of the
guesses of the old philosophers ! "
" I perceive you are devoted to
science," said Mr. Santley, waving his
hand towards the evidences of his host's
taste.
" Oh yes, he is perpetually experi-
112 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
menting in some direction or other,"
said Mrs. Haldane, with a laugh. " I
believe he and Baptisto would pass the
night here, boiling germs or mounting
all manner of invisible little monsters for
the microscope, if I allowed them. You
must know, Mr. Santley, that Mr.
Haldane is writing a magnum opus—
' The History of Morals/ I believe, is to
be the title — and what with his experi-
ments and his chapters, he can scarcely
find time to dine."
" You have been happy in your sub-
ject," said the vicar, turning to the
master of the Manor. " The history of
morals must be an enthralling book.
I can scarcely imagine any subject
affording larger scope for literary genius
than this of the development of that
divine law written on the heart of Adam.
Why do you smile, may I ask ? "
THE UNKNO WN GOD. I I 3
" Pardon me ; I was not conscious that
I did smile, except mentally. You will
excuse me, however, if I frankly say that
I was smiling at your conception of the
genesis of morality. What you term the
divine law written on the heart of Adam
represents to me a very advanced stage
in the development of the moral sense.
We must begin far beyond Adam, my
clear sir, if we would arrive at a philo-
sophic appreciation of the subject. We
must explore as far as possible into that
misty and enigmatic period which pre-
cedes historical record ; approach as
nearly as may be to the time when in
the savage, possibly semi-simian, brain
of the earliest of our predecessors expe-
rience had begun to reiterate her proofs
that what was good was to his personal
advantage, and that what was bad en-
tailed loss and suffering. It has hitherto
VOL. I. I
114 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
been the habit to believe that the Deca-
logue was revealed from Sinai in thunder
o
and lightning and clouds of darkness.
As a dramatic image or allegory only
should that be accepted. Clouds of
darkness do indeed surround the genesis
of the moral in man, and the law has
been revealed by the deadly lightnings
of disease and war and famine and
misery, through unknown and innumer-
able generations. No divine law was.
written on the heart of the first man, or
society would not be where it is to-day.
No ; unhappily, one might say, morality
has been like everything else human-
like everything else, human or not,- — like
the coloured flower to the plant, the gay
plumage to the bird, a dearly bought
conquest, a painfully laboured evolution.
Once or twice during Mr. Haldane s
remarks, the vicar had raised his hand
THE UNKNOWN GOD. I 15
in disclaimer, but waited till he had
finished before speaking1.
'' I was about to protest," he now said,
"against several of your expressions,
but I fear controversy is of little good
when the disputants argue from different
premises. I perceive that you have
accepted a theory of life which com-
pletely shuts out God from His creation."
" Pardon me ; like the old Greek, I
can still raise an altar to the unknown
God."
" To a cold, remote, indifferent ab-
straction, then," replied Mr. Santley,
impulsively ; " to a God unknowing as
unknown — a vague, unrealizable, imper-
sonal Power."
" Impersonal, I grant you, and there-
fore more logical, even according to
human reason, than the huge, passionate
anthropomorphism of Jew and Christian.
J 1 6 FOXGLO VE MANOR.
Consciousness and personality imply the
notion of limits and conditions ; and
which is the grander idea — a limited,
conditioned Power, however great, or
an absolute transcendent Godhead, free
from all the limits which govern our
finite being ? God cannot be conscious
as we understand consciousness, nor
personal as we understand personality.
If He were, then indeed we might well
believe that we were made after His
image and likeness."
"And can you find comfort in such
a creed ? Can you turn for strength, or
grace, or consolation to such a power as
you describe ? "
-Why should I?" asked Mr. Hal-
dane, smiling. " If I need any of these
things, my need is the result of some
law violated or unobserved. The world
is ruled by law, and every breach of law
THE UNKNOWN GOD. H7
entails an inescapable penalty. If I
suffer I must endure."
" That is cold comfort for all the sum
of misery in- the world."
"It is the only true comfort. The
rest is delusion. Preach that every
violated law avenges itself, not in some
half mythical hell at the close of a life
that seems illimitable — for men never do
realize that they will one day die — but
avenges itself here and now ; preach that
no crucified Redeemer can interfere
between the violater of the law and its
penalty ; preach that if men sin they
will infallibly suffer, and you will really
do something to regenerate mankind.
Christianity, with its doctrines of atone-
ment and vicarious suffering and re-
demption, has clone as much to fill the
world with vice, crime, and disease as
the most degraded , creed of pagan or
n8
FOXGLOVE MANOR.
savage. The groaning and travail of
creation are clamant proofs that vicarious
suffering and redemption are the veriest
dreams."
" Either purposely or inadvertently
you mix up the physical and the moral
law/' interposed the vicar.
" The physical and the moral are but
one law, articles of the one universal
code of nature."
" True," said the vicar. <4 1 forgot
that you denied man his immortal soul,
as you deny him his divine sonship.
And so you are content to believe that
man is born to live, labour, suffer, and
perish."
Concede that God is content that
such should be man's destiny," replied
Mr. Haldane, "what then ?"
" What then ? " echoed the vicar,
rising from his chair with flashing eyes
THE UNKNOWN GOD. I 19
and agitated face ; " why, then life is a
fiendish mockery ! "
Mr. Haldane's face wore a grim smile
as he heard the bitter emphasis of the
vicar's reply.
" Ah, my worthy friend," he said,
" you illustrate how necessary it is that
when one has his hand full of truth he
should only open it one finger at a time.
If you revolt thus angrily against the
new gospel, what can be expected from
the ignorant and the vicious ? The
meaning and purpose of life does not
depend on whether the individual man
shall perish or shall be immortal. If
perish he must, he may at least perish
heroically. Annihilation or immortality
does not affect the validity of religion,
whose paramount aim is not to prepare
for another world, but to make the best
of this — to realize its ideal greatness and
120 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
nobility. If life should suddenly appear
a mockery, contrast the present with that
remote past of the naked savage of the
stone age, or the brutal condition of his
more remote sylvan ancestor, learning to
walk erect and to articulate ; and then
summon up a vision of the possible
future, when superstition shall have ceased
to embitter man's life, when a knowledge
of natural law shall have made men
virtuous, when disease shall have vanished
from the world, and the nations shall, in
a golden age of peace and perfected arts,
have learnt the method of a patriarchal
longevity. Millions of individuals have
wept and toiled and perished to secure
for us the present ; we and millions shall
weep and toil and perish to secure the
future for them."
" And that you take to be the signifi-
cance of life, the progress of the race?"
THE UNKNOWN GOD. . 121
" And is not that at least as noble a
significance as a heaven peopled with
the penitent thief, the drunkard, the
gallow's-bird, the harlot, the thousand
bestial types of humanity redeemed by
vicarious agony — the thousand brutes of
civilization who, in this age, are not fit
for life even on this earth, to say nothing
•of an enlarged immortality ? "
" But with ever-rising grades of im-
mortality before them, even those bestial
types might ascend to a perfect man-
hood, and shall they perish ? "
" Have they not been ascending ever
since the Miocene?" asked Mr. Hal-
dane, with a scornful laugh. " However,
it is little use discussing the matter. As
you have said, we cannot agree upon
first principles. Let me show you,
instead, some of my curiosities. Did
you ever see the Mentone skull ? Here
is a plaster cast of it."
122 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" And do you accept this dark and
comfortless creed of your husband ? 'T
asked Mr. Santley, turning to Mrs.
Haldane as he took the cast in his
hand.
" Oh no," she replied, raiskig her soft
dark eyes to him earnestly ; " the pro-
gress of humanity does not satisfy me
as an explanation of the enigma of life
in man or woman. I cannot abandon
my old faith and trust in the God-Man
for an unknown power who does not
care for my suffering and cannot hear
my prayers. What to me can such a
god be ? And what can life be but
a mockery if my soul, with its yearnings
and aspirations and ideals, ceases to
exist after death — has no other world
but this, in which I know its infinite
wants can never be satisfied ? "
The vicar's face brightened, and his
THE UNKNOWN GOD. I23
heart beat with a strange, impulsive
ardour as he listened to her. Why had
this woman, whose enthusiasm and sym-
pathy might have enabled him to realize
his own high ideal of the spiritual, been
denied him ? What evil destiny had
bound her for ever to a man whose
paralyzing creed must make a perpetual
division between them - - a man who
could look into her sweet face and yet
think of her as merely a beautiful
animal ; who could fold her in his arms,
and yet tranquilly accept the teaching
that at death that pure, radiant soul of
hers would be for ever extinguished ?
These thoughts and feelings went
through the vicar's consciousness swiftly
as sunshine and shadow over a land-
scape.
His eyes dropped on the plaster cast
in his hand.
*24 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" This is very old ? " he asked
musingly.
" One of the oldest skulls in the
world," replied Mr. Haldane. " It was
discovered by Dr. Riviere in a cave at
Mentone, in a cliff overlooking the sea.
The man belonged to the ancient stone
age, and was contemporary with the
mammoth and woolly rhinoceros of the
Post-pliocene. The cave was a place of
burial, and on the head of the skeleton
was a thickly plaited network of sea-
•shells, with a fringe of deers' teeth
.around the edge ; the limbs were
adorned with bracelets and anklets of
shells also ; and in front of the face was
placed a little oxide of iron, used as
war-paint, no doubt."
" Even in the Post-pliocene, then,"
said the vicar, "it would appear that
man believed in a hereafter."
THE UNKNOWN GOD. 125
" Ah, yes ; it is an antique superstition,,
and even yet we have not outgrown it.
Human progress is slow."
" And this face was raised to the blue
sky ages ago, looking for Gocl ! "
Mr. Haldane shrugged his shoulders-
and smiled grimly. .
" How is it possible that you, who
must share the weaknesses and sorrows
of the human heart, can so stoically
accept the horrible prospect of annihila-
tion ? " asked the vicar, half angrily.
" I accept truths. Do you imagine I
prefer annihilation ? I could wish that
life were ordered otherwise, but wishing
cannot change an eternal system. Im-
mortality cannot be achieved by defying-
annihilation."
" Have you realized death ? " ex-
claimed the vicar, passionately. " Can
you, dare you, look forward to a time
126 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
when, say, your wife shall lie cold and
lifeless, — and hold to the doctrine that
you have lost her for ever, that never
again shall your spirit mingle with hers,
that you and she are for all eternity
divorced ? "
" You appeal to the passions, and not
to the reason," replied Mr. Haldane,
coldly. " What holds good for the
beast which perishes, holds good for all
of us, and will hold good for those who
come after us, and who will be greater
and nobler than we."
" Be it so," replied the vicar, in an
undertone. As he spoke he bit his lip,
and his cheek coloured. The thought
was not meant for utterance, but it
slipped into words before he was aware.
For the full significance of that thought
was a singular exemplification of the
conflicting spiritual and animal natures
THE UNKNOWN GOD. 1 27
of the man. That divorce of death
which had been pronounced inevitable
opened before him, in a dreamy vista
of the future, a new world of ecstatic
beatitude, where his soul and the radiant
spirit of the woman who stood beside
him should be mingled together in
indissoluble communion.
128
FOXGLOVE MANOR.
CHAPTER VII.
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES.
SHORTLY afterwards Mrs. Haldane sug-
gested that they should take a turn
about the grounds, instead of wasting
the sunshine indoors. As they left the
chapel the vicar paused and looked
back at the ivy-draped building, with its
half-hidden lancets.
" You have turned a sacred edifice to
a strange use," he said. " Here, within
the walls where past generations have
dwelt and worshipped, you have set up
your apparatus for the destruction of
man's holiest heritage. Pardon me if I
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. 129
speak warmly, but to me this appears to
be sacrilege."
" The Church has always been in-
tolerant of science and research," replied
Mr. Haldane, good-humouredly, "and
it is the fortune of conflict if sometimes
we are able to make reprisals. But,,
seriously, I see no desecration here."
"No desecration in converting God's
house into a laboratory to analyze soul
and spirit into function and force ! "
" No desecration, / should say, in
converting the shrine of a narrow, selfish
superstition into a schoolroom where
one may learn a truer and a grander
theology, and a less presumptuous and
illusive theory of life. It is, however,
impossible for us to be at one on these
matters ; let us at least agree to differ
amicably. Your predecesor and I found
much of common interest. He was of
VOL. I. K
IjO . FOXGLOVE MANOR.
the old school, but life had taught him a
kindly tolerance of opinion. To you, as
I gleaned from your sermon yesterday,
the new philosophy and modern criticism
are familiar. You must surely concede
that the old theological ground must be
immeasurably widened, if you are still
resolved to occupy it. Why should you
fear truth, if God has indeed revealed
Himself to the Church ? "
" The Church does not fear truth,"
replied the vicar ; " but she does fear
the wild speculations and guesses at
truth which unsettle the faith of the
world. For myself I have looked into
some of these fantastic theories of
science, and I repudiate them as at once
blasphemous and hopeless. It is easy
to destroy the old trust in the beneficence
of Providence, in the redemption and
destiny of man ; but when . you have
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. 13 l
accomplished that, you can go no further.
Tyndall proves to you that all life in the
world is the outcome of antecedent life ;
Haeckel contends that science must in
the long run accept spontaneous genera-
tion. Your leading men are at logger-
heads ; and it signifies little which is
right, for in either case the causa causans
is only removed one link further back in
the chain of causation. Some of you
hold that there is only matter and force
in the universe, but on others it is begin-
ning to dawn that possibly matter and
force are in the ultimate one and the
same. And again, it signifies little which
is right, for both, being conditioned, must
have had a beginning. A Gocl, a
creative Power, is needed in the long run
— ' a power behind humanity, and behind
all other things/ as Herbert Spencer
describes it ; a God of whom science can
I32 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
predicate nothing, of whom science
declares it to be beyond her province to
speak, but of whom every heart is at
some time vividly conscious and has
been from the beginning — demonstrably
from the Paleolithic period - - until
now."
" Oh, Mr. Santley, I am so pleased
you have said that. I have often wished
that I were able to answer my husband,
but I have no power of argument," said
Mrs. Haldane, looking gratefully at the
vicar. " You must not think he is not
a good, a real practical Christian, in
spite of his opinions.''
Mr. Haldane laughed quietly as his
wife slipped her hand into his.
"As to the God of the Paleolithic
man, Mr. Santley forgets that it was at
best a personification of some of the
great natural powers — wind, rain, thun-
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. 133
•der, sunshine, and moonlight ; and as to
Christianity, my dear, there is much in
the teaching of Christ, and even of the
Church, which I reverence and hold
sacred. Morality, and the consequent
civilization of the world, owes more to
Christianity than to any other creed. It
has done much evil, but I think it has
clone more good. Purified from its
mythic delusions, it has still a splendid
future before it."
" ^^ apropos of practical Christianity,
Mr. Santley," continued Mrs. Haldane,
•" I want to talk to you about the parish.
I am eager to begin with my poor
people again ; and, by-the-bye, the chil-
dren have, I understand, had no school
treat yet this year. Now, sit down here
and tell me all about your sick, in the
first place."
Mr. Haldane stood listening to the
134 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
woes and illnesses of the village for a
few minutes, and then left them together
in deep discussions over flannels and
medicines and nourishing food. Dinner
passed pleasantly enough. The vicar
had satisfied his conscience by protesting
against the desecration of the chapel
and the disastrous results of scientific
research. Clearly it was useless, and
worse than useless, to contend with this
large-natured, clear-headed unbeliever.
It was infinitely more agreeable to feel
the soft dark light of Mrs. Haldane's
eyes dwelling on his face, and to listen
to the music of her voice as she told him
of their travels abroad. In his imagina-
tion the scenes she described rose before
him, and he and she were the central
figures in the clear, new landscape. He
thought of their walks on the cliffs and
on the sea-shore, in the golden days
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. 135
that had gone by. How easily it might
have been !
The sun had gone down when he
parted from his host and hostess at the
great gate at the end of the avenue.
He had declined their offer to drive him
over to Omberley. He preferred walk-
ing in the cool of the evening, and the
distance was, he professed, not at all too
great. As he shook hands with her, that
wild, etherial fancy of a world to come, in
which her husband would have no claim
to her, brightened his eyes and flushed
his cheek. There was a strange ner-
vous pressure in the touch of his hand,
and an expression of surprise started
into her face. He noticed it at once,
and was warned. Mr. Haldane's fare-
well was bluffly cordial, and he warmly
pressed the vicar to call on them at any
time that best suited his convenience.
IS FOXGLOVE MANOR.
They were pretty sure to be always at
home, and they were not likely to have
too much company.
As he walked along the high-road,
bordered on one side with the green
murmuring masses of foliage, and on the
other with waving breadths of corn, his
mind was absorbed in that new dream of
transcendent love. There was nothing
earthly or gross in this dawning glow of
spiritual passion ; indeed, it raised him
in delicious exaltation beyond the coarse- .
ness of the physical, till, as it suddenly
occurred to him that somewhere on his
way Edith was waiting for him, his heart
rose in revulsion at the recollection of
her. At the same time there was a
large element of the sensuous beauty of
transient humanity in that celestial fore-
cast. The pure, radiant spirit of the
woman he loved still wore the sweet
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. *37
lineaments of her earthly loveliness.
Death had not destroyed that magical
face ; those dark, luminous, loving eyes ;
that sweet shape of womanhood. The
spiritual body was cast in the mould of
the physical, and the chief difference lay
in a shining mistiness of colour, which
floated in a sort of elusive drapery about
the glorified woman, and replaced the
worldly silks and satins of the living
wife. This spiritual being was no in-
tangible abstraction, of which only the
intellect could take cognizance. As in
its temporal condition, it could still kiss
and thrill with a touch. Clearly, how-
ever unconscious he might be of the
fact, the vicar's conception of the divine
was intensely human, and his spiritual
idealizations were the immediate growth
and delicate blossom of the senses.
A great stillness was growing over the
*3 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
land as he pursued his way. The wood-
lands had been left behind him, and their
incessant murmur was now inaudible.
Sleep and quietude had fallen on the
level fields ; not an ear of wheat stirred,
no leaf rustled. The birds had all gone
to nest, except a solitary string of belated
crows, flying low down in black dots
against the distant silvery green horizon.
The moon was rising through a low-
lying haze, which had begun to spread
over the landscape. The* vicar looked
at his watch. It was after nine o'clock.
He began to hope that Edith had grown
tired of waiting for him, and had returned
home. He had a sickening feeling of
repugnance and vague dread of meeting
her.
Little more than a month after Mr.
Santley had settled in Omberley, Miss
Dove had come to live with her aunt.
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. 139
Her father and mother had died within
a year of each other, and the girl gladly
accepted the offer of Mrs. Russell to con-
sider her house as a home until she had
had time to look about her. Edith had
been left sufficiently well provided for,
and her aunt, the widow of a banker,
was in a position of independence, so
that the disinterested offer was accepted
without any sense of dependence or
humiliation. The bright, innocent face
of the girl instantly caught the eye of
the vicar. He saw her frequently at
her aunt's house, and gradually learned
to esteem, not only her excellent qualities,
but to find a use for her accomplishments.
She was especially fond of music, and
when the vicar suggested that she might
add to the beauty of the service at St.
Cuthbert's by interesting herself in the
choir and presiding at the organ, she
14° FOXGLOVE MANOR.
eagerly acquiesced. The church was
one of Edith's favourite haunts ; and
when the vicar, who was himself a lover
of music, heard the soul-stirring vibra-
tions of some masterpiece of the great
composers, his steps were drawn by an
easily explicable fatality to the side of
the pretty performer. Still, it was a
fatality. Slowly, and imperceptibly at
first, the sense of pleasure at meeting
grew up between the two ; then swiftly
and imperceptibly they found that there
was something in the presence of each
other that satisfied a vague, indefinable
craving ; and lastly, with a sudden access
of self-consciousness, they looked into
each other's eyes, and each became gladly
and tremulously aware of the other's
love. Edith was still young, almost too
young yet to assume the station of the
wife of the spiritual head of the parish ;
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES.
and Mr. Santley was not sure as to the
manner in which his sister would receive
the intimation that there was, even in
the remote future, to be a new mistress
brought to the Vicarage. The girl was,
however, still too happy in the know-
ledge that she was beloved to look
forward to marriage. With a strange,
feminine inconsistency, she regarded their
union with a certain dread and shame -
facedness. It seemed such a dreadful
exposure that all the village should know
that they loved each other. " Oh nor
no ; it must not be for a long, long time
yet!" she once exclaimed nervously. "Is
it not sufficient happiness to know that I
am yours and you are mine ? I cannot
bear to think that every one must know
our secret." To have those long, pleasant
chats under cover of the music ; to be
invited to the Vicarage, and to sit and
I42 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
talk with him there ; to receive those
haphazard glances, as it were, while he
was preaching ; to be escorted home by
him in the evening when it was dark,
and no one could see that her hand was
on his arm ; to receive those almost
stolen kisses ; to feel his arm about her
waist ; — what more could maiden desire
to dream over for weeks and months —
for years, if need were ?
Edith was endowed with the intense
feminine faith and fervid ideality of the
worshipper. To sit at her lover's feet
and to look up adoringly to him, was at
once her favourite mental and physical
attitude. On her side, she exercised
a curious spiritual influence over him.
There was such an aerial brightness and
lightness about her, such sweet fragile
loveliness in her form and figure, such
tender abandonment of self in her dis-
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. 1 43
position, that he felt he had not only
a woman to love, but a beautiful child-
like soul to keep unspotted from the
world, to guide through the dark ways
of life to the arms of the great loving
Fatherhood of God. The presence of
Edith helped him to banish the dark
doubts and evil promptings of the spirit
of unbelief. When she spoke to him of
her spiritual experiences, he felt joyous
ascensions of the heart which raised
him nearer to heaven. She created in
him the unspeakable holy longings and
vague wants that give the lives of the
mystic saints of Roman Catholicism so
singular a blending of divine illumination
and voluptuous colour. Unconsciously
the vicar was realizing in his own nature
Swedenborg's doctrine of celestial affini-
ties. This love restored to him the
innocence and ardour of the days of
144 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
Eden ; he had found at once his Eve
and his Paradise, and he felt that, as of
old, God still walked in the garden in
the eool of the day. Some such glamour
surrounds the first developments of
every sincere attachment. It is the
first rosy tingling flush of dawn, dim
and sweet and dreamy, and, like the
dawn, it glows and brightens into the
fierce clear heat of broad day, burning
the dew from the petal and withering
the blossom.
As Mr. Santley's thoughts turned to
Edith, the recollection of these things
came vividly upon him. Only a week
ago, and she was the one woman in the
world he believed he could have chosen
for his wife. In an instant, at the sight
of a face, all had been changed. His
love had become a burthen, a shame,
a dread to him. Edith had grown
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. 145
hateful to him. At the same time, he
could not deaden the sting of remorse as
he reflected on his broken vows. The
passionate protestations he had uttered
sounded again in his ears in accents of
bitter mockery ; the pledges he had
given seemed now to him hideous blas-
phemies.
At a bend of the road he suddenly
came in sight of a figure moving before
him in the dusk. He knew at a glance
it was she, and he prepared himself for
the meeting. Although he earnestly
wished to disembarrass himself of her, he
found himself unable to do so at once
and brutally. He would try to estrange
her, and free himself little by little.
As they approached each other he
saw that Edith's face was grave and sad.
She was trying to learn from his look in
what manner she ought to speak to him.
VOL. I. L
I46 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
His assurances on the previous evening
had not tranquillized her, and she had
still a terrible misgiving that a chasm
was widening between them.
The vicar was the first to speak.
" I am a little later than I expected," he
said, as he held out his hand to her.
"It does not signify now. I was only
afraid that you might be so late I should
have to go home without seeing you."
He made no reply, and they walked
on side by side in silence for a few
seconds. At last she stopped abruptly
and looked at him.
" Charles," she said, " you know what
you said to me last night ? "
-Yes."
" Was it true ? "
" Why should you ask such a question ?
Why should you doubt its truth ? "
" I try not to doubt it, but I cannot
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. H7
help it. Oh, tell me again that you do
not hate and contemn me ! Tell me
you still love me."
" My dear Edith," replied the vicar,
laying his hand on her arm, "you are
not well. You have been overtaxing
your strength and exciting yourself.'
Edith did not answer, but the tears
rose to her eyes and began to run
down her cheeks. She did not sob or
make any sound of weeping, but her
hand was pressed against her throat.
" Come, don't cry like that ; you know
I cannot bear to see you cry."
He stopped as he spoke, and took her
hand in his. They stood still a little
while, and she at length was able to
speak.
" Do you remember," she asked in a
low, broken voice, " that I once told you
you were my conscience ? "
FOXGLOVE MANOR.
He regarded her uneasily before he
replied.
" Yes ; you once said that, I know.
But why return to that now ? "
" 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 im-
patiently.
" 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
CELESTIAL AFFINITIES. 149
raised beseechingly to his face. Sud-
denly 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."
15° FOXGLOVE MANOR.
CHAPTER VIIL
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 to-
wards 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 pas-
sionate episode of the past. He drew
Edith's hand under his arm and held it
A SICK-CALL. I51
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 tell-
ing 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
I52 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
coming to life again. She knows in-
stinctively, 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.
A SICK-CALL. 153
" 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
^54 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
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.
A SICK-CALL. 155
" Oh, Charles, she never loved you as
I have."
" Never, never," replied the vicar hur-
riedly ; 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 re-
member 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 fol-
lowing 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 ap-
peared 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
I56 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
his calls. He looked forward with un-
easiness and self-distrust to her co-
operation in his daily work. There was
an irresistible something, a magical at-
mosphere, 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.
A SICK-CALL. 157
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 sen-
sitive to the change in her brother
as Edith herself, regarded Mrs. Hal-
dane 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
158 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
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 instruc-
tions, and Mr. Santley and Mrs. Hal-
dane 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
A SICK-CALL. 159
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.
160 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" 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 bed-
ridden 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
A SICK-CALL. l6l
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 ? "
VOL. I. M
162 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" He be raving mad, ma'am ! " said
Mrs. Mansfield, apologetically. " He
don't know what he is saying."
" Jennie, you damned little var-
mint
" 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. Gradu-
ally, 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.
A SICK-CALL. 163
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 gar-
den and do her many little kindnesses."
" Poor woman ! And she has en-
dured 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
104 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
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 regret-
ful 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 spec-
tacle 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.
A SICK-CALL. 165
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-
field. " 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."
*66 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" 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,
A SICK-CALL. 167
old Mansfield could be heard some hun-
dreds 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 sug-
gest 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 Chris-
tian 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."
1 68 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" 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 '11 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 '11 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. " Good-
bye 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.
69
CHAPTER IX.
A SUMMER SHOWER.
AFTER that first round of visitation Mrs.
Haldane and the vicar met very fre-
quently.
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 Pro-
vidence, and mete out help and gladness
to afflicted humanity. She was actuated
by no petty spirit of vanity or ostenta-
tion ; and though she soon learned that
the poorer and more necessitous people
17° FOXGLOVE MANOR.
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 conversa-
tions 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 school-
girl past which had so nearly faded away
from her memory, and began to wonder
whether, if her family had not so
promptly extinguished that little ro-
mance 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
A SUMMER SHOWER. I?1
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. With-
out any analysis of her feelings or any
misgiving whatever, Mrs. Haldane knew
that the vicar's friendship was very dear
172 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
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 good-
ness 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
A SUMMER SHOWER. I 73-
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
174 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
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 hus-
band, 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 shelter-
ing her person with her own. Side by
side, with the large trunk of a beech-tree
behind them and its tossing branches
A SUMMER SHOWER. I 75
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.
I76 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" I was thinking of long ago," he said
in answer to her look ; " do you remem-
ber 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
A SUMMER SHOWER. 177
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 any-
thing, I think, at that time."
" That pretty gipsy girl with the dark
almond eyes and red-and-amber head-
dress 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
VOL. I. N
I? FOXGLOVE MANOR.
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
A SUMMER SHOWER. 1/9
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
i8o
FOXGLOVE MANOR.
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 your
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
A SUMMER SHO WER. 1 8 I
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
Jove 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
182 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
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 con-
sider 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 ad-
vantages 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
A SUMMER SHOWER. 183
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
184 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
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 him-
self 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 per-
plexed her imagination. What could
she do to be of service to him ? She
A SUMMER SHOWER. 185
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.''
l86 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" 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 chil-
dren 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 ar-
boreal blood," said Mr. Haldane, laugh-
ing. "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."
CHAPTER X.
THE KISS.
THE artist in search of a pretty rural
subject could not do better than paint a
village holiday — a holiday from which
the men and women are all but excluded,
and the village school-children and the
old people are gathered together for a
voyage through the leafy lanes to the
picturesque playground of a neigh-
bouring wood. Such an enjoyable
spectacle as that presented on the day
of the Omberley school-treat deserved
to be immortalized by art, if only for
the sake of rilling a city parlour with a
188 FOXGLOVE M4NOR.
-sense of eternal summer. It was a
glorious August morning that laughed
out over Omberley on the day of the
great picnic. The young people were
astir early, for it had been impossible to
sleep from the excitement they felt after
the first glimmer of dawn. About ten
o'clock the streets were gay with troops
•of children, clean, rosy-cheeked, and
dressed in their Sunday clothes, who
went singing to the rendezvous at the
schoolhouse. There they were received
by Miss Dora Greatheart, who inspected
them all, and expressed her approbation
at finding them so neat and prim. In
twos and threes the old people, the
men in tall hats and swallow-tailed coats
for the most part, and the women in
their best black gowns and church
bonnets, came slowly along the road,
gossiping and laughing and breathing
THE KISS.
hard with the weakness of old age.
Then came the musicians— old Gabriel
Ware, the sexton, with his fiddle, and
two younger men, one of whom played
the concertina and the other the corno-
pean, each with a huge nosegay in his
breast and wearing the jauntiest air
conceivable. There was a happy buzz
of excitement about the schoolhouse as
the people assembled ; a joyous babble
of the clear treble voices of little lads
and lasses, and the piping notes of gar-
rulous patriarchs and ancient dames ; a
strange picture, as pathetic as it was
pretty, of bright young faces and
dancing little figures mingling among
gray wrinkled visages and frail stooping
shapes.
"Well, Dora, we are to have a fine day,'r
said Edith, as she entered the garden and
shook hands with the schoolmistress.
19° FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" Splendid ; only we shall be a little
late in starting. We should have been
off at ten, and the waggons have not
come yet. Why, here is old Daddy
coming ! "
She had stepped out to the road to
look for the waggons, and now she went
to welcome the new arrival whom she
called Daddy. He was a very old, very
wiry little man, with a funny little face
full of wrinkles, a pair of little grey eyes,
and a perfectly bald head. This was
the oldest inhabitant of Omberley ; and
though he was in his ninety-second year,
he was as brisk and hearty as many
who were twenty years his juniors.
" Well, Daddy, you have actually
come ! " said Dora, shaking hands with
him. " I am very glad. And how do
you feel to-day ? Pretty strong and
hearty ? '
7 HE KISS. 19 1
" Strong as Samson, mistress, and
hearty as — hearty as anything," replied
the old man, with a chuckle.
" Please, miss," said a young woman
who accompanied him, " mother sends
her duty, and will you kindly take care of
him and see as he doesn't goa-thinking."
Daddy's only symptom of senility was
an aptitude to fall into a state of uncon-
sciousness, and in these cases, which
sometimes lasted for hours together, he
would sit down wherever he was, and
consequently ran considerable risks
when he went out-of-doors alone.
Though the old fellow was quite unable
to give any account of himself during
these lapses into oblivion, he always
stoutly declared that he had been only
thinking.
" And please, miss, you'll find his
bacca-box and his pipe in his tail pocket,
I92 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
and his hankercher, and the matches is
in his vest pocket. He do forget where
he puts his things."
Daddy laughed scornfully.
" I never forgets nothing, I don't," he
said boastingly. " I can mind o' the great
beech as was blown down on the green
in the whirlywind of '92 ; ay, I mind —
A loud cheer from the school chil-
dren interrupted the flow of Daddy's
reminiscences. The greeting was in-
tended for the vicar and the patroness
of the festival, Mrs. Haldane, who now
drove up to the school-house. She was
already acquainted with Dora, but she had
not yet met either Edith or the oldest
inhabitant. Mr. Santley introduced
both as the waggons came in sight, and
at once the cheering was renewed, and
the children streamed out into the road.
What a fine sight those waggons were
THE KISS.
v— the long, curved, wheeled ships of the
inland farmer, painted yellow and red,
and drawn by big horses, with huge
collars and bright iron chains ! The
semicircular canvas awning had been
removed, but the wooden arches which
supported it were wreathed with leaves,
and flowers, and festoons hung over-
head between arch and arch. The
horses, too, were gaily decked out, each
having a nosegay between its ears, and
its mane and tail tied up with ribbons.
The bottom of the waggons were
covered with trusses of straw, to make
comfortable seats for the old folk. The
more daring of the lads were already
clambering up the wheels, and securing
seats on the flakes which went along the
sides of the rustic ship like a sort of
outrigger.
Before allowing Daddy to be helped
VOL. I. O
194 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
on board, Miss Greatheart beckoned to
her a little pale-faced girl who was
obliged to use crutches.
" Nannie dear, I want you to look
after Daddy as much as you can.
When you are tired of him you must
come and tell me. Don't let him go
away by himself, and wake him up if he
sleeps too long."
This was said in a whisper to the
child, who smiled and nodded.
" Now, Daddy, here's little Nannie
Swales," said Dora ; " I want you to
take care of her. You're the only per-
son I can trust to look after her
properly. And she likes to talk to you
and see you smoke."
The little old man smiled and chuckled
complacently.
" Put her aside of me, mistress, and
I'll see as no ill comes to her."
THE KISS. 195
What could have been more charm-
ingly idyllic than those two great wag-
gons, crowded with little shining-eyed
tots, merry lads and lasses, withered old
men and women, all happy and con-
tented ? The blue sky laughed down
on them ; the green leaves and flowers
embowered them ; and as a start was
made, one of the musicians struck up
" For we'll a-hunting go " on the con-
certina, and a score of clear, fresh
voices joined in the jovial song.
Through the village, which turned
out to wave hands to them as they
passed singing and cheering, away
through gold-green stretches of ripening
harvest, past empty fields where the hay
had all been cut and carted, between
level expanses of root crops lying green
in the hot sun, till at last the dark em-
bankment of Barton Wood rises above
196 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
the distant sky. How cool and refresh-
ing it is, after the glare of the midday
sun, to get into the green shadowland
of these grand old beeches and syca-
mores !
The road winds leisurely as if to seek
out the coolest recesses of the wood,
and beneath the great bunches of heavy
foliage, what quiet, dim distances one
sees between the trunks, strewn thick
with withered leaves, through which
the moss and grass and a thousand
moist plants thrust their emerald ways
and blue and pink and yellow flowers are
clustered in cushions of velvet colour !
A few yards away from the road the air
seems brown and transparent. That
must be the reason why the leaves of
the mountain ash are so darkly green,
and the berries so brilliantly crimson.
If you pluck a bunch and take it out of
THE KISS. *97
the wood, you will find it has become
disenchanted ; the colour is no longer
the same.
The road is not a highway, but
leads to an old quarry of brown sand-
stone. There has been no work
done here for a few years, but many
generations of stonemasons have plied
hammer and chisel in this picturesque
workshop. It is a tradition that the
stone of Foxglove Manor, old as it is,
was got here. The old church was
built from these brown walls of stone ;
so was the Vicarage, and so were the
windowsills and facings of all the houses
in Omberley. It is an unusually large
quarry, for a great deal of stone has
been taken away during these two
hundred odd years. A great deal of
half-shaped ( stone lies about in large
square and oblong blocks, both on the
198 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
floor of the quarry, and among the trees
at its entrance. The trees must have
sprung up since many of these blocks
were cut, otherwise it is not easy to see
why they should have been put where
you now find them. On two sides the
walls of rock are high and precipitous,,
but on the others the grass and ferns
and beeches are carried into the quarry
as on the swell of a green wave. A
stone shed and hut, roofed with red tiles,
stand at the foot of one of these slopes,
and here the commissariat department
has established itself. A romantic,
green, cosy, convenient spot for a picnic
and a dance !
The waggons were driven right into
the quarry, and the horses were hobbled
and allowed to graze beneath the trees.
The hour before dinner was spent in
wandering through the woods gathering
THE KISS. 199
flowers and berries, in rolling about on
the soft grass, or in smoking and chatting
among the blocks of sandstone. When
the cornopean sounded the signal for
the feast, the youngsters came trooping
in, dancing and eager to begin, for the
excitement had prevented most of them
from taking breakfast.
And what a luxurious feast it was i
The vicar, Mrs. Haldane, Edith, and
Miss Greatheart, went about the
various groups seeing that every one
was well supplied with what they liked
best. After the cold meats, pies, and
pastry, came a liberal distribution of
fruit and milk to the children, and a
glass of wine to the old people ; and at
this point Daddy was made the object
of so much nudging and whispering and
signalling, that at last he got upon his
feet and made a wonderful little speech
200 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
on behalf of the company, keeping his
wine-glass in his hand all the time, and
every now and then holding it up
between his eye and the light with the
shrewd air of a connoisseur. Then
there were three cheers for Mrs. Haldane,
and three cheers for the vicar, three
for Dora and for Edith, and happily
some young rascal, whose milk had been
too strong for him, proposed in a
frightened scream three cheers for
Daddy, which were very heartily given
by all the school children, though the
seniors looked much shocked and sur-
prised at so daring a demonstration.
In about an hour the racing and
games were to begin, and meanwhile
Mrs. Haldane, the vicar, and the two
young ladies were to have lunch to-
gether. It is not necessary to enter into
any detail of the various sports which
THE KISS. 201
took place, or to linger over the dancing
and merrymaking that followed. When
the fun was at its height, and Daddy
was capering gaily to the jigging of the
small orchestra, Edith, who felt only
half interested, slipped quietly away into
the wood. She was not surprised or
aggrieved that Mr. Santley paid so much
attention to the lady of the Manor,
but she felt hurt that he seemed so
completely to forget and overlook her-
self. She wished now to be a little
alone in Arden, for Edith loved the
woods, and in every glade she could
imagine in her fanciful moments that
Jaques, or Rosalind, or Touchstone
had just gone by, so closely had she
.associated the dramatic idyl with every
piece of English forest-land.
She followed at haphazard a foot-track
that went through the trees until she
2O2 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
reached a brook, which she found she could
cross by means of three slippery-looking
stepping-stones, against which the water
bickered and gurgled as it raced along.
All the steep banks were knee-deep in
beautiful' ferns close by the water's edge,
and higher up the slope grew luxurious
tufts of wild flowers. The sound of the
water was very pleasant to hear, and
when she had nimbly jumped across it,
instead of following the path, she went
up the side of the stream to where a
mountain ash leaned its dense clusters
of blood-bright berries right across. At
the foot of the tree was a large boulder,
and, after a glance round her, she sat
down and drew off her shoes and stock-
ings. The weather was warm, and the
clear, sun-flecked water was irresistibly
inviting. There she sat for some time,
dreamily paddling with her little white
THE KISS. 203
feet, like a pretty dryad whose tree
grew in too dry a soil.
She had finished playing with the cool
stream, and was letting her feet dry in
the patches of sunlight that pierced
through the branches above her, when
she heard a sound of voices. She
hastily tried to draw on her stockings,
but her skin was still too moist ; and so,
gathering her feet under her skirt, she
concealed herself as much as possible
from the observation of the intruders.
As they approached she recognized the
voices with a start, and crouched down
behind the boulder more closely than
before.
"We can go no further this way,"
said Mrs. Haldane.
" Oh yes, we can. I will assist you
over the stones," the vicar rejoined.
" They look very treacherous and
-204 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
slippery, and the water makes one
nervous, running so fast."
" Look, it is quite safe ! " said the
vicar ; and Edith, peeping from the side
of the boulder, saw him step quickly
across the brook. " It is a pity you
should miss the old Roman camp, when
you are so near it."
" If you will come back and assist me
from this side, I will Itry them," said Mrs.
Haldane.
The vicar returned across the brook,
and Edith saw the lady gather her dress
and prepare to step on to the first stone.
" Now, you must be ready to reach
me your hand in case I need it."
" Oh, you will find it quite easy when
you try. Don't stop, but go right across
without hesitation."
Mrs. Haldane jumped fairly enough
•on to the first boulder, but, instead of
THE A'ISS. 205
allowing the forward impetus to carry
her on, she tried to stop and steady her-
self on the narrow footing among the
rushing water. She lost at once her
balance and her courage, and turning to
him with outstretched arms, she cried
out, " Quick ! quick ! I shall fall ! "
She threw herself back to the side as
she spoke, and he caught her in his
arms. Her arms were about his neck,
her face close to his ; he felt her breath
upon his cheek. It was only for an
instant, and as she tried to recover
herself, their eyes met with a flash of
self-consciousness. In the passionate
excitement of that supreme moment
he strained her to his breast, and
pressed his lips to her in a long, violent
kiss.
Edith sprang to her feet as though
she had been stung ; but instantly she
206 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
recollected herself, and sank down into
her hiding-place.
Mrs. Haldane tore herself from the
arms that encircled her, and fronted the
vicar with a flushed, angry face.
" Are you mad, Mr. Santley ? " she
asked indignantly. " Allow me to pass
at once."
He stood aside trembling, white, and
speechless ; and she swept by him and
hurried back through the wood.
The vicar looked after her, but stood
as if rooted to the spot; while Edith,
heedless of the hard stones and her
naked feet, ran down wildly to the
stepping-stones.
He turned as she approached, and
there, with the water whirling between
them, she confronted him like his out-
raged conscience.
CHAPTER XI.
EDITH.
" Is this your fidelity ? is this your love ?"
she asked bitterly.
The deadly pallor of the vicar's face
had given place to a flush of guilt and
shame. He crossed the brook and
stood beside her.
" Edith, I have done wrong. Can
you forgive me ? " he asked, attempting
to take her hand.
" Do not touch me, Mr. Santley ! " she
exclaimed, stepping back from him.
" Do not speak to me."
" Will you not forgive me, Edith ?"
208 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" Ask God to forgive you. It matters
little now whether I forgive or not.
Please go away and leave me."
" I cannot leave you in this manner.
Say you fbrgive. I confess I have done
wrong, but it was in the heat of passion,
it was not premeditated."
" The heat of passion ! Was it only
in the heat of passion that you— Oh,
go at once, Mr. Santley ! Go before I
say what had better be left unspoken ! "
The vicar paused and looked at her
anxiously ; but Edith, throwing her shoes
and stockings on the ground, sat down
on a stone, and resting her pale, unhappy
face on her hands, gazed with a hard,,
fixed expression at the water.
" Dearest Edith, try to believe that
what I did was only an act of momen-
tary madness ; blame me if you will, for
I cannot too severely blame myself, but
EDITH. 209
clo not look so relentless and unfor-
giving."
She never stirred or gave any indica-
tion that she had heard him, but sat
staring at the water.
" You will be sorry for your unkind-
ness afterwards," he continued.
She paid no heed to him, and he saw
it was hopeless to try to effect a recon-
ciliation at the present moment.
" Since you command me to go, I will
go."
Still she appeared not to have heard
him. He went back across the brook,
and, glancing back once or twice, dis-
appeared in the wood. A minute or two
later he stole back again, and saw that
she was still sitting by the brook in the
same stony attitude. A vague sense of
uneasiness took possession of him. He
knew that even the meekest, frailest,
VOL. I. P
210 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
and gentlest of women are capable of the
most tragic extremities when under the
sway of passion. Yet what could he
do ? She would not speak to him, and
was deaf to all he could say in extenua-
tion of his conduct. Trusting to the
effect of a little quiet reflection, and to
the love which he knew she felt for him,
he* resolved at length to leave her to
herself. After all he had, it seemed to
him, more to fear from Mrs. Haldane
than from Edith. To what frightful
consequences he had exposed himself by
that act of folly ! Would she tell her
husband ? Would the story leak out
and become the scandal of the country
side ? With a sickening dread of what
the future had in store for him, he re-
traced his steps to the quarry.
Mrs. Haldane's first impulse was to
order her carriage and at Once drive
EDITH. 2 l l
home, but her hurried walk through the
wood gradually became slower as she
reflected on the strange interpretation
that would be put upon so sudden a
departure. She had brought the vicar,
and if she now hastened away without
him, evil tongues would soon be busied
with both her name and his. For the
sake of the office he held, and for her
own sake as well, she resolved to be
silent on what had happened. She felt
sure that the vicar would be sufficiently
punished by the stings of his own con-
science, and if any future chastisement
were required he should find it in her
distance and frigid treatment of him.
Consequently, when Mrs. Haldane
reached the quarry she assumed a cheer-
ful, friendly air, stopped to say a few
kind words to the old people, and in-
terested herself in the amusements of
212 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
the children. It was now drawing near
tea-time, and the sun was westering.
Mr. Santley felt relieved when he found
that Mrs. Haldane had not abruptly
left, as he dreaded she would do, but he
made no attempt to speak to her or
attract her attention. At tea-time she
took a cup in her hand and joined a
group of little girls, instead of taking
her place at the table set aside for her.
The vicar's eye glanced restlessly
about for Edith, but she had not obeyed
the summons of the cornopean, and in
the bustle and excitement, her absence
was not noticed. It was only when the
horses had been put into the shafts, and
the children, after being counted, were
taking their places in the waggons, that
Miss Greatheart missed her.
" Have you seen Miss Dove, Mr.
Santley ? " she asked, after she had
EDITH. 2 T 3
.searched in vain through the little crowd
for Edith. " I don't think she was at
tea."
" She went in the direction of the old
camp," replied the'vicar, hurriedly ; " she
cannot have heard the signal. Do not
say anything. I think I shall be easily
able to find her. If Mrs. Haldane asks
for me, will you say I have gone to look
for her ? You can start as soon as you
are ready ; we shall easily overtake you."
So saying, Mr. Santley plunged into
the wood, and hurried to the brook.
Edith was still sitting where he had left
her, but she had in the meanwhile put
on her shoes and stockings. Instead of
the fixed, determined expression, her
face now wore a look of intense
wretchedness, and evidently she had
been crying. She looked up at the
sound of his footsteps.
214 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" Edith, we are going home," he said,,
as he reached the edge of the stream.
" You can go," was the answer.
" But not without you."
" Yes, without me. I am not going
home. I am never going home any
more. I have no home. Oh ! mother,
mother ! "
The last words were uttered in a low,
sobbing voice.
" Come, come, you must not speak
like that. You must go home. What
would your poor aunt say if you did
anything so foolish ? "
" Oh, what would she say if she knew
how I have disgraced her and myself?
No, I cannot go home any more."
" But you cannot stay here all night,"
said the vicar, with a chill, sinking
tremor at the heart.
She gave no answer.
EDITH. 2 1 5
" Edith, my dear girl, for God's sake
do not say you are thinking of doing
anything rash ! "
" What else can I do ? What else
am I fit for but disgrace and a miserable
end ? Oh, Mr. Santley, you swore to
me that before God I was your true
wife. I believed you then. I did not
think you were only acting in a moment
of passion. But now I see that it was
a dreadful sin. I was not your . wife;
and oh ! what have you made me
instead ? "
He was very pale, and he trembled
from head to foot as he listened to her
words.
" Do not speak so loud," he said in a
hoarse whisper.
" What ! do you feel ashamed ? Are
you afraid of any one knowing ? But
God knows it now, and my poor, poor
2l6 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
mother knows it — God help me ! — and
all the world will know it some day."
" Edith, you will not ruin me ? "
" Have you not ruined me ? Have
you not cast me off for a woman who
does not even care for you — for another
man's wife ? Oh no, do not be afraid.
I will take my shame with me in silence.
No one shall be able to say a word
against you now, but all the world will
know at the last."
" Edith, listen to me. I will tell you
everything ; I will hide nothing from
you ; but do not condemn me unheard.
All that I said to you was true, and
is still true. Till she came, I did really
and most truly love you with all my
heart and soul. You were my very
wife, in God's eyes, if love and truth
be, as they are, what makes the validity
of marriage. I did not deceive you ; I
EDITH. 2 I /
did not speak in a moment of passion.
Before Heaven I took you for my wife,
and before Heaven I believed myself
your husband."
" And then she came ! " interposed
Edith, bitterly.
" And then she came. I have told
you all she was to me once, all I hoped
she would one day be. But I have
not told you how I have struggled to
be true to you in every word and
thought. It has been a hard and a
bitter struggle — all the more hard and
bitter that I have failed. I confess,
Edith, that I have not been true. But
are we all sinless ? are we perfect ? "
•" We can at least be honourable.
Your love of her is a crime."
" Her beauty maddens me. She is
my evil angel. To see her is to love
her and long for her. And instead of
2l8 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
helping me to conquer temptation, in-
stead of trying to save me from myself,
you cast me from you, you upbraid my
weakness, you taunt me with your un-
happiness. When she is not near, my
better nature turns to you. You help
me to believe in God, in goodness ; she
drives me to unbelief and atheism. Did
you fancy I was a saint ? Have not I
my passions and temptations as well as
other men ? Even the just man falls
seven times a day ; if you indeed loved
me as a true wife, you would find it in
your heart to forgive even unto seventy
times seven."
" You know how I have loved ! "
"Have loved! Ay, and how easily
you have ceased to love ! "
" No, no ; I have never ceased to love
you. It is because I must still love and
love you that I am so wretched."
EDITH. 219
" Then how can you be so unfor-
giving ? "
" Oh, I am not unforgiving. I can
forgive you anything, so long as I know
that I am dear to you. Seven and
seventy-seven times."
" And you forgive me now ? "
" I do. But you will never any
more- "
" You must help me not to ; you must
pray for me, and assist me to be ever
faithful to you."
"I will, I will.".
He drew her to him, and kissed her
on the lips.
" And you will come home now ? "
" Yes, with you."
" The waggons have started, and we
must walk quickly to overtake them."
" Oh, I don't care now how far we
have to walk."
220 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
11 Mrs. Haldane, however, may have
waited for us."
Edith stopped short.
" I couldn't go near her."
" Consider a moment, darling. She
knows nothing about you, and she does
not know that you know anything about
her. It might look strange if she drove
home without me, after bringing me
here. I feared at first that she would
have left instantly, but she did not.
She may not wish to give people any
reason for talking about any sudden
coolness between us. Do you under-
stand me ? "
"Yes. I will go."
The vicar had correctly divined the
course Mrs. Haldane had pursued.
When she learned that Mr. Santley had
gone in search of Edith, she drove very
leisurely along, so that they might over-
EDITH. 221
take her. She had just got clear of the
wood when, on looking round, she
observed them coming through the
trees. She drew up till they reached
her ; and when they had got in, she
started a brisk conversation with Edith
on all manner of topics. She was in
her liveliest mood, and to Edith it
seemed almost incredible that the scene
she had witnessed at the brook was a
very serious fact, and not an hallucina-
tion. Edith noticed, however, that the
vicar seldom spoke, and that, though
Mrs. Haldane listened and answered
when he made any remark, the conver-
sation was between Mrs. Haldane and
herself.
At parting Mrs. Haldane gave him
her finger-tips, and was apparently pay-
ing more attention to Edith when she
said good-bye to him.
222 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
CHAPTER XII.
CONSCIENCE.
MRS. HALDANE came no more to the
Vicarage that week, and on Sunday she
did not remain, as she had hitherto
done, for the communion at the close
of the morning service. She was evi-
dently deeply offended, and was doing
all she could to avoid meeting the vicar.
With him that week had been one of
terrible conflict. Tortured with remorse
and shame, he was still mad with pas-
sion. That kiss was still burning on
his lips. He still could feel that
voluptuous form in his arms. It
CONSCIENCE. 223
seemed, indeed, as though Mrs. Hal-
dane were his evil genius, driving him
on to destruction. He was unable to
pray ; and when he sat down to prepare
his sermon, her face rose between him
and the paper, and, starting up, he
rushed from the house and walked
rapidly away into the country. This
was in the forenoon, and he walked on
and on at a quick pace for several hours.
He passed little hamlets and farmsteads
which he did not notice, for his mind
was absorbed in a wretchedness so
intense that he scarcely was conscious
of what he was doing. In the afternoon
he came to a wood, and, worn out with
fatigue and agitation, he entered it and
flung himself beneath the shadow of a
tree.
There he lay, a prey to conscience,
till the sun went down. He had had
224 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
no food since morning, and he was now
weak and nervous. He returned from
the wood to the high-road and retraced
his steps homeward. As he passed by
the wayside cottages, he was tempted
once or twice to stop and ask for bread
and milk, but after a mental contest
he each time conquered the pangs of
hunger and thirst, and went on again.
The fathers of the desert had subdued
the lusts of the flesh by hunger and
stripes and physical suffering, and if
mortification could exorcise the evil
spirit within him, he would have no
mercy on himself. He was a great
distance from home, and, notwithstand-
ing his resolution to suffer and endure,
he was several times forced to sit down
and rest on heaps of broken stones by
the wayside ; and on one of these
occasions a spray of bramble-berries
CONSCIENCE. 225
hanging over the hedge caught his eye,
and looked so rich and sweet that he
plucked one and raised it to his mouth.
The next moment, however, he had
flung it away from him. On another
occasion he was startled to his feet by
the sound of wheels, and as he walked
on he was overtaken by a neighbouring
farmer in his gig, who drew up as he
was passing, and touched his hat.
" Making for home, Mr. Santley ? "
he asked, as he shook up the cushion
on the vacant seat beside him. " I can
put you down at your own door, sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Henderson ; I prefer
walking, and I have some business to
attend to."
" All right, sir. It's a fine evening
for a walk. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
The vicar watched the gig diminish
VOL. I. Q
226 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
on the distant road till at length the
hedgerows concealed it, with a certain
sense of stoical satisfaction. He felt he
was not all weakness ; there was yet
left some power of self-denial, some
fortitude to endure self-inflicted chastise-
ment.
It was nearly dark when he arrived
again in Omberley. The windows were
ruddy with fire and gaslight ; there were
no children playing in the streets ;
several of the small shopkeepers who
kept open late, were now at last putting
up their shutters. There was a genial
glow from the red-curtained window of
the village inn, and a sound of singing
and merriment.
" Why should I not go in and join
them ? " he thought to himself. " What
an effect it would have, if I stepped into
the sanded taproom and called for a
CONSCIENCE. 227
pipe and a quart of beer ! The vicar
smoking a long clay, with his frothing
pewter on the deal table beside him !
Why not ? Has not the vicar his gross
appetites as well as you ? Why should
you be scandalized, friends, if he should
indulge in the same merry way as your-
selves ? Is he not a mere man like
you, with the same animal needs and
cravings ? Fools, who shrink with
horror from the humanity of a man
because he wears a black coat and talks
to you of duty and sacrifice and godli-
ness ! How little you know the poor
wretch to whom you look for counsel
and comfort and mediation with
Heaven ! "
He was turning away, when the tap-
room door was flung open, and half a
dozen tipsy men, cursing and quarrel-
ling, staggered out into the street.
22S FOXGLOVE MANOR.
Among them was a handsome, swarthy
girl of two and twenty, gaily dressed
in colours, with a coloured handkerchief
bound over her black hair, and a guitar
in her hand. They were evidently
quarrelling about the girl, who was
doing her best to make peace among
them.
" You does me no good by your fight-
ing and kicking up a row, masters.
Decent folks won't let a wench into the
house when there's always a fight got
up about her. You spoils my market,
and gets me an ill name, masters."
" Any way, Jack Haywood shan't lay
a finger on thee, Sal ! " cried a burly-
young fellow, deep in his cups, as he-
clenched his horny fist and shook it at
Jack.
"What is't to you what Jack does?"
returned the girl, saucily. " Neither
CONSCIENCE. 229
Jack nor thee shall lay a finger on me
against my will. I reckon I can take
care o' myself, masters."
"Ay, ay, thou canst that!" assented
several voices.
The vicar, who had stood to witness
this scene, now stepped in among the
group. The men recognized him, and,
touching their forelocks, slunk away
in sheepish silence. He uttered not a
word, but his pale face sobered them
like a dash of cold water. Only the
girl was left, and she stood, red and
frightened, while her hands were ner-
vously busied with the guitar.
" You are back again, Sal, and at
your old ways," said the vicar, in a low
voice. " I see, all good advice and all
encouragement are wasted on you."
" I can't help it, sir," said the girl,
sullenly. " I was born bad ; I'm of a
2 3° FOXGLOVE MANOR.
bad lot. It's no use trying any more.
It's in the blood and the bone, and it'll
come out, in spite of everything."
" Have you made much to-day ? "
asked the vicar.
"A shilling."
"Where are you going to stop to-
night ? "
"At old Mary Henson's, in Barn
Street."
" Then, go home at once, Sal," said
the vicar, giving her a half-crown.
" Will you promise me ? "
" Yes."
" And you will speak to no man .to-
night ? You promise ? "
" Yes," said the girl, taking the money,
with a strange look of inquiry at the
vicar.
" And try to say your prayers before
you go to sleep."
CONSCIENCE. 231
The girl dropped a curtsy, and went
slowly down the street. With a bitter
laugh, the vicar pursued his way home-
ward.
" In the blood and the bone ! In the
blood and the bone ! " he repeated to
himself. " You are right, girl ; we are
born bad — born bad. The bestial mad-
ness of ages and aeons, the lust and
lasciviousness of countless generations,
are still in our blood, and our instincts
are still the instincts of the beast and
the savage. Hypocrite and blasphemer
that I am ! Whited sepulchre, reeking
with corruption ! Living lie and mask
of holiness ! O God, what a wretch
am I, who dare, to speak of purity and
repentance to this woman ! "
When he reached the Vicarage, his
sister was anxiously awaiting him, and
supper was ready.
232 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" Where have you been so long ? "
she asked, a little impatiently. " I think
you might leave word when you expect
to be detained beyond your usual time.
It is eleven o'clock."
" I could not say how long I should
be," replied the vicar, with a weary look,
which touched his sister and changed
her ill-temper to solicitude.
" You are quite tired out, poor fellow,"
she said, laying her hand on his shoulder.
" Well, come to supper. It is ready."
" I cannot take anything at present,"
replied Mr. Santley. " I will go and do
a little of my sermon."
" Shall I leave something out for you,
then?"
" Yes, please. Good night."
He went into the study, lit the gas,
and, locking the door, flung himself into
an armchair.
CONSCIENCE. 233
"In the blood! in the blood!" he
bitterly communed with himself. " And,
with all our wild dreams and aspirations,
we are but what science says we are,
the conqueror of the lascivious ape, the
-offspring of some common ancestral
bestiality, which transmitted to the
simian its animalism free and unfettered
except by appetite, and to man the
germs of a moral law which must be for
ever at variance with his sensual in-
stincts. God ! we are worse than apes —
we the immortals, with our ideals of
spirit and purity ! "
He rose, and going across the room
to the tall, carved oak cupboard, whose
contents were a secret to all but himself,
he unlocked it and opened the folding
doors. The light fell on a large, beau-
tiful statue of the Madonna, with the
Infant Christ in her arms. The figure
234 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
was in plaster, exquisitely coloured, and
of a rare loveliness. He looked at it
abstractedly for a long while.
" Mother of God ! " he exclaimed at
length, with passionate fervour. " Spot-
less virgin, woman above all women
glorified, the solitary boast of our tainted
nature — oh, dream and desire of men
striving for their lost innocence, how
vainly have I worshipped and prayed
to thee ! How ardently have I believed
in thy immaculate motherhood ! How
yearningly I have cried to thee for thy
aid and intercession ! And no answer
has been granted to my supplications.
My feverish exaltation has passed from
me, leaving me weak and at the mercy
of my senses. Art thou, too, but a
poetic myth of a later superstition — an
idealization more beautiful, more divine
than the frail goddesses of Greece and
CONSCIENCE. 235
Rome ? The art and poetry of the
world have turned to thee for inspira-
tion, the ascetic has filled the cold cell
with the shining vision of thee, altars
have been raised to thee over half the
globe, the prayers of nations ascend to
thee, and art thou but a beautiful con-
ception of the heart, powerless to aid or
to hear thy suppliants ? "
He paused, as if, indeed, he expected
some sign or word in answer to his wild
appeal. Then, closing the doors again
and locking them, he went towards his
desk. On it lay the manuscript of the
sermon he had preached on the Un-
known God.
" The Unknown God ! " he exclaimed.
" What if hep husband is right ! What
if, indeed, there be no God, no God
for us, no God of whom we shall ever
be conscious ! All science points that
236 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
way. When the man is dead, his soul
is dead too. We deny it ; but what is
our denial worth ? It is our interest to
deny it. All phenomena contradict our
denial. No man has ever risen from
the grave to give us assurance of our
immortality. Ah, truly, ' if there be no
resurrection of the dead, then is Christ
not risen ; and if Christ be not risen,
then is our preaching vain, and your
faith is also vain ! '
He paced the room excitedly.
" Why act the knave and the hypocrite
longer ? WThy delude the world with a
false hope of a future that can never
be ? Why preach prayer and sacrifice,
and suffering and patience, when this
life is all ? If Christ is not risen, our
preaching is vain, and your faith is also
vain."
He again paced the room ; and then,
CONSCIENCE. 237
going to a drawer where the keys of the
church were kept, he took them, and
stole noiselessly out of the house. All
was very still outside. The stars were
shining, and it was duskily clear. He
traversed the churchyard, and reaching
the porch he unlocked the door and
entered. It was quite dark, except that
the tall, narrow windows looked grey
against the blackness of the rest of the
building, and a little bead of flame
burned in the sanctuary lamp. He
closed the door after him, and went up
the echoing nave to the chancel. Thence
he groped his way to the pulpit, and
ascending he looked down into the dark-
ness before him.
He stood there in silence, straining
his eyes into the gloom, and gradually
there came out of the darkness faint,
spectral rows of faces, turned up to his
238 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
with a horrified and bewildered aspect.
He uttered no word, but in his brain he
was preaching from the text of Paul,
and proving that Christ, indeed, had
never risen, and that their faith was
vain. This world was all, and there was
nothing beyond it. Vice and virtue
were but social and physical distinctions,
implying that the consequences of the
one were destructive of happiness, of the
other were conducive to happiness. Sin
was a fiction, and the sense of sinfulness
a morbid development of the imagina-
tion. Every man was a law unto him-
self, and that law must be obeyed. A
man's actions were the outcome of his
constitution. He was not morally re-
sponsible for them. Indeed, moral
responsibility was a philosophical error.
In dumb show was that long, phrenzied
sermon preached to a phantom congre-
CONSCIENCE. 239
gation. At the close the vicar, omitting
the usual form of benediction, descended
from the pulpit, staggered across the
chancel, and fell in a swoon at the foot
of the steps which led to the altar.
24° FOXGLOVE MANOR.
CHAPTER XIII.
IN THE LABORATORY.
THE grey dawn was glimmering through
the chancel when Mr. Santley regained
consciousness. He looked wonderingly
about him, and at first was unable to
understand how he came to be in his
present position. That physical collapse
had been a merciful relief from a state
of mental tension which had become
intolerable. He felt faint but calm, and
the horrible excitement of the last few
hours presented itself to his memory
as a sort of ghastly nightmare from
which he had been providentially
awakened.
IN THE LA BORA TOR Y. 241
He rose and went out into the church-
yard. The air was moist and cool. A
strange white mist lay in fantastic pools
and streaks on the bare hayfields. The
corn was full of an indistinct white gauzy
vapour. So were the trees. There
was not much of it in the open air. It
had a spectral look, and, like spirits, it
seemed to require some material thing
to interpenetrate and rest upon. The
grass was heavy with dew, and the
gravelled walk as dark coloured as
though there had been rain. From the
corn came the sound of innumerable
chirpings and twitterings. The fields
seemed to be swarming with sweet, sharp
musical notes. In the trees, too, though
there was no stir of wings, there wras a
very tumult of bird-song — not the full,
joyous outpouring, but a ceaseless
orchestral tuning up and rehearsing as it
VOL. I.
242 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
were. The familiar graveyard in this
unusual misty light, and alive with this
strange music, seemed a place in which
ne had never been before. The effect
was as novel as the first appearance of a
well-known landscape buried in snow.
The newness of what was so familiar
excited an indefinable interest in him.
He felt somehow as though he had
passed through the valley of the shadow,
and this was the day after death — that
death by which we shall not all die, but
by which we and all things shall be
changed. He lingered in that mental
state in which thought expands beyond
the bounds of consciousness, and it was
not till a low, faint flush of red began to
colour the east that he returned to the
Vicarage, and, throwing himself on his
bed, fell into the deep, dreamless sleep
of exhaustion.
IN THE LABORATORY, 243
It was fortunate for Mr. Santley that
he had inherited a magnificent consti-
tution, or the consequences of this wild
conflict mio^ht have been disastrous. He
o
woke late, but the brief period of rest
and unconsciousness had repaired the
reckless waste of nervous force. Only
a profound sadness remained as a testi-
mony of the terrible nature of the
emotion he had endured. The rest of
the week passed in a sort of weary,
listless stupor and the same heavy sad-
ness. When Sunday came round, he
shuddered as he ascended the pulpit
.at the recollection of that phantasmal
audience to which he had last preached;
but his intellect was clear and sane, and
he kept faithfully to the written discourse
spread out before him. He was not sur-
prised that Mrs. Haldane left before he
had any opportunity of speaking to her.
244 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
He had half expected as much. She
regarded him with a cold, haughty con-
tempt— a contempt too passionless to
permit her even to avenge the insult he
had offered her by exposing him to his
parishioners. She knew he loved her—
and indeed was not this folly proof of
the frantic character of his love ? — and
she knew that total loss of her would be
the greatest chastisement even vindic-
tiveness could wish to inflict upon him.
It would have been possible for him,
he thought, to bear in silence any
punishment from her except this icy
contempt and utter indifference. If she
had hated him, if she had pursued him
with bitter hostility, if she had disgraced
him, he could have endured it ; it would
have been no more than he merited.
But that she should simply ignore him,
that she should not consider it worth her
IN THE LABORATORY. 245
while even to be angry, was an intoler-
able humiliation.
In spite of all, he still loved her ! It
was useless to seek to delude himself
into any belief to the contrary. He
loved her, in defiance of honour, good-
ness ; in spite of misery and shame ; in
spite of divine or human law ; in spite
of man or God. He loved her with a
mad, despairing passion, which he might
conceal from all eyes for a little while,
but which he could never quell ; which
he felt would some day break out in
a frantic paroxysm that would involve
both him and her in a common ruin.
Home, position, reputation, this life and
the next — he could sacrifice all for her.
He could not exist without her. To
see her and be never seen by her was a
living hell. If he were, indeed, to be for
ever doomed to this misery, better that
246 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
he should perish at once, and have done
for ever with the torture of being.
This alternative presented itself to
the vicar not merely as one of those
exaggerated expressions of feeling com-
mon to many men in moments of un-
endurable pain or depression, but as a
sober reality. An existence in which
Mrs. Haldane took no part and shared
no interest was literally to him an
existence more hateful than self-destruc-
tion itself. On the Monday he pro-
ceeded to the neighbouring market
town, and bought a revolver and a
packet of cartridges. He loaded the
weapon on the road, and threw the
remaining cartridges away. That even-
ing he spent in looking over his papers,
a large number of which he burned. He
then sat down, and wrote for some time ;
but when he had finished, he threw
IN THE LABORATORY. 247
what he had written into the fire. What
need was there to put any explanation
on record ? He then took from the
bookcase the great poem of Lucretius,
and read till a late hour.
Next morning he arose early, and
seemed in better spirits than he had
been for some time. He told his sister
that he was going to walk over to
Foxglove Manor, and was not certain
as to when he would return. He left
the house, humming a tune, and set out
at a brisk pace through the village.
The weather was bright and inspiriting.
The country never before seemed so full
of health and gladness and joyous life.
The lark was singing far up in the
shining blue sky ; butterflies went flutter-
ng across the road ; whirring flights of
birds along the hedgerows preceded
him all the way. He looked at every-
248 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
thing and noticed everything — the bright
flowers growing among the wayside
weeds ; the snail which had crept on to
the footpath, and whose shell he care-
fully avoided. He observed too much
to think ; but one thought, underlying
this discursive activity of mind, kept
him company all the while — " I have
struggled and prayed ; I have tried to
believe and to trust ; I can do no more.
If there be a God who is concerned in
man, let him now give evidence of His
providence."
When he reached the Manor, he was
ushered into the reception-room, where
he was not kept long waiting. Mrs.
Haldane entered the apartment, and
received him with a chilling courtesy.
She noticed that, though he had ad-
vanced eagerly at her entrance, he had
not offered her his hand ; and now that
IN THE LABORATORY. 249
she had bowed to him with a certain
constrained grace, he stood regarding
her hesitatingly.
" I have come," he said at last, in a
low, nervous voice, " to throw myself on
your mercy, to beg your forgiveness, to
ask you once more to restore me your
confidence and friendship."
" I freely forgive you, Mr. Santley,"
she replied at once. "It is better that
what has taken place should be forgiven
and forgotten as speedily as possible.
But my confidence and friendship ! How
can I trust you any more ? And I did
trust and esteem you so much. I re-
garded you— But I will not even
reproach you with having destroyed my
idealization of you."
" Reproach me and censure me as you
will," he cried earnestly ; " but do not
cast me away from you, do not be heart-
250 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
lessly indifferent to me. It lies in your
hands to make my life happy or miser-
able. It depends on you whether I can
live at all."
"That cannot be," replied Mrs. Hal-
dane, shaking her head gravely.
" It is and must be," said the vicar.
" All my future, both here and hereafter,
hangs on your decision now. I have
fought with myself, and prayed to God
to be delivered from my bondage ; but
it is in vain. No answer has been
vouchsafed to my supplications ; no
grace, no strength has been granted in
my need. Had I prayed to the deaf
impersonal power which your husband
believes in, I could not have been more
hopelessly unheard or unheeded. The
conflict is over. I am the gladiator
fallen in the arena, and it rests with you
to give the signal of reprieve or destruc-
tion."
IN THE LABORATORY. 251
" I do not understand you, Mr.
Santley," she said, feeling alarmed and
excited. " What do you ask ? What
would you have me do ? "
" Oh, what would I have you do ! " he
exclaimed passionately ; then, checking
himself abruptly, he continued eagerly,
11 I would have you be as you were
before I offended you. I would have
you forgive my offence."
" I have promised to forgive and
forget it," said Mrs. Haldane.
" No ; do not forget it, but pardon it,
and try to look upon it as more venial
than you now do. Oh, Ellen, had I not
loved you beyond all that a man values
in this world, would it be possible to
have so far fallen in your esteem ? "
She frowned, and was about to in-
terrupt him ; but he went on hurriedly —
" Do not be angry. I will not speak
FOXGLOVE MANOR.
to you of love again. I will only answer
your question. I would, as I have said,
that you should forgive my offence, and
be the same to me as though it had
never happened. Not only my use in
life, my happiness, my honour depend
on this, but life itself. I cannot exist
without some share in your thoughts, in
your interests, in your regard. Life
would be intolerable if you were to be
wholly taken away from me. Do I ask
too much ? Answer me quickly, for I
am prepared for either alternative. You
and God — if, indeed, there be above us
a God who sees and cares — must now
decide my course."
" You frighten and bewilder me with
your passion. I do not know what
to answer you. Indeed, I hardly know
whether I understand you. I have for-
given you. I bear you no ill will. I
IN THE LA BORA TOR Y. 255
hope, indeed, that you may be happy,
and that you may soon find some one
who will be worthier of your love than I
could have been. I am both sorry and
ashamed of what has happened, and I
will try to forget it, both for your sake
and my own. Have I not said enough?"
" And the future ? " he asked, with an
anxious look.
'" The future will be a continuation of
the past, seeing that all is forgiven and
forgotten."
" And you will still allow me to speak
to you, to see you ? You will not treat
me with silence and indifference ? "
" I will be as I used to be," said Ellen,
with a look of doubt and hesitation.
" And you will trust me ? "
"Are you to be trusted, Mr. Santley?"
she Asked in a low voice. " You know
how fully I trusted you before."
2 54 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
" And you must trust me again if all
is to be the same as it was. Is not that
our agreement ? "
" I will try to, but the result will en-
tirely depend upon yourself."
" I cannot say how thankful and grate-
ful I am to you," he said, extending his
hand.
She took it, and he raised hers to his
lips, though she coloured and tried to
withdraw it.
" Nay, it is but a token of my grati-
tude and submission. I am thankful to
live, and you do not know how certainly
you have enabled me to live."
" My husband is in the laboratory,"
said Mrs. Haldane, who felt uneasy, and
wished to bring this interview to a close.
" Shall we join him ?"
" Certainly, if you wish it."
They found Mr. Haldane busily en-
IN THE LABORATORY. 255
gaged in writing, while the sinister-look-
ing attendant, with the dark, startling
eyes, was noiselessly occupied in filling
a number of flasks with some mysterious
decoction intended for immediate experi-
ment.
" Ever busy ! " exclaimed the vicar.
" Busier than ever just now," replied
Mr. Haldane. " I am preparing a paper
which I intend to read on Tuesday
next before the scientific congress at
Paris."
" Are you going to Paris ? " asked
Mr. Santley, with surprise, and address-
ing the question rather to Mrs. Haldane
than her husband.
" Mr. Haldane is going, but I remain
here."
A look of relief passed over the vicar's
face.
" And what is the subject of your
256 FOXGLOVE MANOR,
paper, if curiosity be pardonable ? " he
asked.
" Oh, it is a chapter from the great
opus on morals. I call it ' The Problem
of Suicide.' A singularly fascinating
subject to one who has paid any atten-
tion to it, I assure you. Does it happen
to have fallen in your line of study ? "
" I cannot say it has."
" You would find some curious gene-
ralizations here, in that case," said Mr.
Haldane, pointing to the sheets of paper
on his desk. " For instance, I suppose
you would be hardly prepared to grant
that suicide, which seems a barbarous
and unenlightened act, is really an effect
of civilization, or that an act which
appears more than any other an evidence
of individual spontaneity, is in fact the
inevitable issue of universal and absolute
social law."
IN THE LABORATORY. 257
" I am certainly not prepared to con-
cede that."
" No ; few persons unacquainted with
the subject would be. Still, the facts
remain. The suicide who imagines he
is rebelling against all law and asserting
his individual independence, is but illus-
trating the coercion of the physical and
psychical dispensation. Why, you shall
not even choose your own weapon of
destruction, or select the spot in which
you shall die. Law will fix those appa-
rently trivial details for you. If your
suicide is an Englishman, for example, he
will prefer hanging to cutting and stab-
bing, cutting and stabbing to drowning,
drowning to poison, and poison to fire-
arms. With English women the order
of preference is modified. A third of
the women, and hardly a seventh of the
men, seek death by drowning ; while a
VOL. i. s
258 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
seventh of the women poison themselves,
but only a fifteenth of the men. The
ratios hold good from year to y ear-
relatively at least — for suicide is largely
on the increase. You should look into
the matter for yourself. It is a most
attractive social problem."
" Perhaps Mr. Santley would like to
look at your paper?" suggested Mrs.
Haldane.
" You shall be very welcome to see it
when I return," said the philosopher.
" Thank you very much. I have no
doubt it will be extremely interesting.
And when do you leave ? "
" The day after to-morrow. I shall
spend a day or two in London, and
possibly a week or a fortnight in Paris.
Indeed, I have some notion of paying
a flying visit to Berlin."
That afternoon, as, the vicar returned
IN THE LABORATORY. 259
home, he paused by a pool in one of the
fields that skirted the high-road, and
flung his revolver into it.
" Can it be possible.," he asked him-
self, " that man has no volition, no inde-
pendence of action ; that his choice of life
or death even is not a choice, but a pre-
determined issue of mechanical forces ? "
He watched the ripples die away on
the water, and then resumed his way.
" Are we mere automata, accomplish-
ing not our own wills, but the secret pur-
pose of a subtle agency, of whose control
we are unconscious ? "
Gradually the problem which per-
plexed him gave place to another wave
of thought. His step became firmer
and more elastic, and his face brightened.
The thought which effected this
change in his demeanour was Mr. Hal-
dane's departure. What might not
260 FOXGLOVE MANOR.
happen in those few days of absence ?
Was not Mr. Haldane also accomplishing
an unknown, destiny ? Might not this
journey be providential ? Or say, rather
an unanticipated road to the great end ?
Suppose Mr. Haldane should never
return !
The possibilities involved in that re-
flection !
Then he thought of Mrs. Haldane.
For a week, perhaps for a fortnight, she
would be alone at the Manor. For a
fortnight ? Who could foretell — perhaps
for ever!
END OF VOL. I.
I'KINTEU BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND bECCLES.
PR
4262
F68
1884
v.l
Buchanan, Bobert Williams
Foxglove Manor
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